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ChapTEZ^Copjright No.. 

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STONEY CARDINGTON’S 


IDEAL. 


BY 


MRS. MAY ANDERSON HAWKINS. 

'! 

Author of “ Jack Payton and His Friends,” 11 Philip Barton's 
Secret,” and Other Stories. 


Htcfymon6, Pa. : 

Presbyterian Committee of Publication. 



Copyright ed 
BY 

JAS. K. HA ZEN, Secretary of Publication. 

1897. 


2n 


189 ( 3 . 


Printed by 
Whittet & Sh 




Richmond, Va. 




AUG - 8 1898 

«... .J&' 


^rrfCoyfS 
TWO COPIES RECEIVED 




TO THE 


dear Virginia friends 

of former Years, 

whose Homes were clustered about 
the little churches of olivet aNd betHaNY. 
this volume is 
affectionately inscribed. 




























PREFACE. 


If any words in this little volume will help 
perpetuate the memory of the noble hero whose 
purity of life has so impressed her as to cause 
this simple story to be written, the author will 
be richly repaid for her labor. 

Our Southern youth can hardly find a higher 
human model than is furnished by the life and 
character of General Thomas J. Jackson. 

If the writer accomplishes nothing more by 
sending out this loving tribute to his memory 
than to awaken in the hearts of our boys and 
girls a desire to familiarize themselves with his 
life, as given us by his devoted wife and also by 
Dr. Dabney, her task will not be barren of 
fruit. 

M. A. H. 


5 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

Page 

Resisting an Enemy, 

11 

CHAPTER II. 

In an Old Virginia Home, 

17 

CHAPTER III. 

New Influences, . 

23 

CHAPTER IV. 

A Brave Act, .... 

29 

CHAPTER V. 

An Unwelcome Summons, 

35 

CHAPTER VI. 
Adrift, . . . 

41 

CHAPTER VII. 

New Scenes, ...... 

47 

CHAPTER VIII. 

New Friends, . . . - . 

53 

CHAPTER IX. 

Settled, ...... 

59 


7 


8 


Contents. 


CHAPTER X. 

A Birthday Feast, . 

Page. 

65 

CHAPTER XI. 

A Critical Period, . 

70 

CHAPTER XII. 

A Narrow Escape, . 

75 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Not Anchored, . 

81 

CHAPTER XIY. 

An Unstable Wall, . 

86 

CHAPTER XV. 
Gathering Clouds, . 

92 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Homeless, ...... 

98 

CHAPTER XVII. 

In Hollywood, . 

103 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

A Guest Admitted, . 

109 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Changed, ...... 

116 

CHAPTER XX. 

A Sudden Death, . 

. 120 


Contents . 


9 


CHAPTER XXI. p AGE 

An Unsuspected Rogue, .... 124 

CHAPTER XXII. 

A Test, . . . . 129 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A Good Time, ...... 134 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

“A Noble Life Will Live Forever,” . . 139 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Sad Hours, ....... 145 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Broad Wat, ..... 150 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Answered Prayer, . . .156 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Broken Plans, . .162 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Severed Ties, . .168 

CHAPTER XXX. 

“In Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus,” . 174 






STONEY CARDINGTON’S IDEAL 


CHAPTER I. 

RESISTING AN ENEMY . 

“ TONEY! Stoney Cardington, come here.” 

The voice was a shrill one, and the 
appearance of the woman corresponded with 
the voice. 

Sharp-featured and angular, she looked as if 
all the honey that had ever come into her life 
had long ago fermented, leaving only acidity 
and bitterness behind. 

“You, Stoney, if you don’t come here this 
minute, I’ll — I’ll punish you so that you’ll re- 
member it fur many a day. D’ye hear ? ” 

Her tone rose to a sharp falsetto as she thus 
called. 

A lad of some seven or eight years of age, 
concealed from her view by a clump of low- 
growing evergreens, stood motionless as her 
tones reached him. He only straightened him- 
self a little at her first call, and then looked 
down to see that his toes were squarely against 
11 


12 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

a line which he had evidently marked for him- 
self in the sand. After that he stood like a 
statue. 

“ Me find ’im. He hidin’ ’hind ’em bushes.” 
cried a sturdy child, who had been hanging, 
whimpering, to the woman’s skirts. Unlike 
the majority of children of his age, the fresh 
sweetness of childhood was not discernible 
in his face. His expression was a vivid re- 
production of the ill-temper so clearly stamped 
upon the woman’s countenance, and marked 
them as being undoubtedly mother and child. 

“Well, go and find him, then. And if he’s 
thar, Tommy, call me,” was the woman’s reply, 
given in the shrill falsetto in which she had be- 
fore spoken. 

The child ran nimbly forward, and peering 
around the evergreens discovered the motion- 
less figure. 

“He ’m here, muzzer,” he called out, and 
then ran to the boy and tugged at his coat, say- 
ing: “You my hoss. You run ’ed away. Get 
up now, hossy. Go ’long, ole hoss.” 

“I’m not a horse. I’m a wall,” the boy 
muttered, not stirring. 

“ Muzzer, he won’t go. He say he not my 
hoss,” screamed the child, in fury. 

“We’ll see about that,” the woman said, 


Resisting an Enemy . 


13 


coming around the bushes. She took hold of 
the culprit’s shoulder and shook him angrily as 
she said: “What do you mean, Stoney Card- 
ington, by gettin’ into these sulking spells all 
at onct ? Didn’t I tell you to play with Tommy 
’till I sent you fur water? What d’ you run 
away from him fur?” 

“ He slapped me in the face, and kicked me, 
and I couldn’t do anything to please him,” the 
boy answered, still remaining in his tracks. 

“Don’t you know he’s nothin’ but a baby? 
You got to humor him. Come on, now, an’ 
don’t you run away from him again.” 

But Stony did not stir. 

The woman again shook him, and again or- 
dered him to follow her; but he remained just 
where she had found him, with his toes rigidly 
against the mark in the sand. 

“If you’re not the stubbornest child that 
ever was born,” the woman wrathfullv said. 
“ I’d whip you, but whippin’ don’t do no good.” 
Then she fixed her eyes upon him and added : 
“ If you don’t come with me this minute and 
play with Tommy, you sha’n’t have a bite to eat 
to-day.” 

Seeing that the stubborn expression on the 
lad’s face did not change, she continued : “ It’s 
nigh on to twelve o’clock. You didn’t eat a 


14 


Stoney Carding ton’s Ideal. 

big breakfast, an’ you’ll find yourself about 
starved before night.” 

Stoney’s lips quivered a little, but he did not 
move. 

The woman turned away with Tommy beside 
her, who began howling for his “hoss.” He 
darted back and gave Stoney’s bare legs a vici- 
ous kick with his copper-toed shoes, and then 
joined her again, saying: “You’ll starve ’im, 
won’t you, muzzer, cause he won’t be my 
hoss?” 

“I don’t see what great sin I ever done to 
have that dreadful child left on my hands to 
look after. He is gittin’ worse and worse every 
day, an’ he acts ez if he didn’t have good 
sehse,” she said, in a monotone. “He just 
stands plumb still when the notion takes him, 
and I can’t make him budge. I’ve whipped 
him ’till I was clean tired out, but it don’t do 
no good. I ’most wish he’d die, sometimes, 
so’s to give me a little peace.” 

Poor woman ! As one looked into her face 
he knew it would take more than Stoney Card- 
ington’s death to bring peace to her stormy, 
passion-swept soul. 

Could she have looked underneath his ragged 
jacket into the lad’s heart, some feeling akin to 
pity might have been awakened within her 


15 


Resisting an Enemy . 

breast. Greatly surprised she would have 
been, at least, as she read his thoughts, which 
ran somewhat in this wise : 

“’Course she’s my en’my, ’cause she just 
hates me. So’s Tommy, An’ he never moved 
’fore his en’mies. The man said so. He alius 
stood like a wall. An’ I’s to stan’ just that 
a-way, alius. If I does, I’ll grow up to be a 
great man like him.” 

At this point he winked very hard to keep 
back two tears which the remembrance of his 
forfeited dinner and supper brought to his 
eyes. 

“ I’s ’most hungry ’nuff to eat chips,” he 
thought. “ I wonder if he ever had to lose his 
vittles like me ’cause he had to stan’ like a wall 
’gainst his en’mies? What makes her an’ 
Tommy hate me so, I wonder? Is it ’cause my 
father drinked whiskey till it deaded him, an’ 
leff me fur her to look arter? I wisht she 
wouldn’t be my en’my, but would love me. I 
could work for her, then, an’ ’fend her and 
Tommy, like he did fur his Men’s, ’stead o’ 
havin’ to stan’ ’gainst her like a wall.” 

Such was the trend of Stoney’s thoughts, 
although they were not so clearly defined to his 
own consciousness as we have portrayed them. 
He was conscious, however, that he was ill- 


16 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

used and despised by his aunt and small cousin, 
and that, in accordance with his childish ideal 
of manliness and greatness, he was bound to 
resist them with all his stubborn will and puny 
strength. His hunger became so great as the 
hours passed that he stole noiselessly to the 
shed where the scraps of corn bread and the 
bones for the dog were kept, and greedily de- 
voured whatever he found that could appease 
his appetite. Then he threw himself upon the 
grass under an apple tree, and soon fell asleep. 


CHAPTER II. 


IN AN OLD VIRGINIA HOME. 

B ERKELEY, the birthplace of President 
William Henry Harrison, is one of those 
old colonial homes still dear to the heart of all 
true Yirginians. Although less pretentious 
than its neighbor, Westover, it is still fragrant 
with memories which quicken the pulse and 
kindle the eye of every patriotic youth in the 
Old Dominion State, as he recalls the stirring 
scenes from the years of the long ago, when 
Virginia stood foremost in the ranks of Ameri- 
can commonwealths. 

In the year 1874 this memorable home, which 
had then passed from the hands of the Harri- 
son family, was occupied by the Gordons. It 
would be difficult to find a nobler race than 
this name typifies. 

Dr. Samuel Gordon was not only an able 
physician, but he was also a man of culture 
and refinement. More than this, he was the 
friend and succorer of the poor and distressed, 
wherever found; and in him the sad-hearted 
always knew they would find a sympathizer 
and helper, so far as he was able to render 
them assistance. 

2 


17 


18 iStoney C ar ding ton s Ideal. 

His wife, Mrs. Annie Gordon, was a worthy 
helpmeet for him ; and their only child, Grace, 
seemed the embodiment of the graces and vir- 
tues of both parents. If she had a fault, her 
friends had never discovered it. She was about 
eighteen years of age, and was most fair to look 
upon. But the beauty of her soul, which gave 
to her countenance a chaste light which im- 
pressed every beholder, made one forgetful of 
the delicacy of her features, in admiration of 
the deeper loveliness of her spirit and charac- 
ter. 

“Mamma,” Grace said to Mrs. Gordon, the 
morning following the incident recorded in our 
former chapter, “ did you notice Stoney when 
he came for milk last night? His eyes were 
all swollen, and I am sure that Mrs. Carson 
must have been punishing him again. She is 
really cruel to him, I am afraid.” 

“That child weighs upon my heart,” Mrs. 
Gordon responded. “I am almost tempted to 
offer to take him, if Mrs Carson will let him 
leave her. He could do many useful things 
about the garden and yard, and we might find 
him a real comfort. I do not believe that he is 
really a bad child, as Mrs. Carson insists. He 
has a noble face, and his eyes are beautiful.” 

“Yes, and so thoughtful,” Grace added. ‘ I 


19 


In an Old Virginia Home. 

wish you would take him, mamma. We could 
teach him to read, and send him to Sabbath- 
school, and make a little Christian out of him. 
He is a veritable heathen now.” 

“ Only God can make him a Christian, dear,” 
her mother corrected ; “ but we could put him 
in the way to find Christ. There really seems 
no chance for him where he is.” 

“Who is he, anyway?” Grace asked. “Mrs. 
Carson is always flinging up to him that his 
father was a drunkard, and that he will proba- 
bly go the same way. It is dreadful to hear 
her, in her shrill voice, always scolding the 
poor little fellow. I wonder he is not almost 
murderous under her constant hectoring. I am 
afraid I should be.” 

Mrs. Gordon smiled at the idea of her gentle 
Grace ever becoming murderous, whatever her 
surroundings might be ; but the girl, interpret- 
ing correctly the smile, added, vehemently: 
“The evil in me has never had a chance to 
grow, mamma, is why you think the idea ab- 
surd. I do believe, if I had been forced to en- 
dure the ceaseless nagging which makes Stoney 
Cardington’s life a misery to him, I should have 
developed into a little fiend. I feel it stirring 
in me now, sometimes, when that woman is 
talking, and I almost wish that I might choke 


20 


Stoney Cardington s Ideal . 

her until she learns how to behave herself. 
She is cultivating all that is bad in Stoney’s 
nature, and rapidly developing whatever is 
wrong.” 

“I am afraid that is true,” Mrs. Gordon as- 
sented. “I did not know that you were such a 
close observer. Mrs. Carson’s sharp voice is 
truly an infliction. 

“You ask about Stoney’s history. His fa- 
ther married far beneath him in social standing, 
and, while Stoney’s mother was a higher type 
of woman than her sister, she was still far from 
being an ideal wife. Jack Cardington was as 
brave a soldier as ever wore a uniform. He 
fought under General Jackson, and when Stoney 
was born, a year after the close of the war, 
he named him after his idolized commander. 
Your father knew Jack Cardington well, and 
loved him.” 

Grace smiled as she said, “Oh, I see, ‘Sto- 
ney ’ is only his nickname, then ; his real name 
is Thomas.” 

“Yes, Thomas Jackson Cardington ; but they 
have always called him ‘Stoney.’ Jack Card- 
ington took to drinking after his return from 
the army. People say it was the shrill tongue 
of his wife that drove him to it.” 

“ If it was anything like Mrs. Carson’s, I am 
not surprised,” was Grace’s comment- 


21 


In an Old Yirginia Home . 

“He died a miserable drunkard when Stoney 
was but three years old. One year afterwards 
his wife suddenly passed away, from an attack 
of pneumonia. Since then Mrs. Carson has 
had charge of the boy. No doubt he is a great 
tax upon her, especially since her husband has 
left her.” 

“But you know, mamma, that you give her 
a good support, with all the work you place in 
her way, and with the substantial things you are 
always adding,” Grace indignantly answered. 
“There is no excuse for the way she treats the- 
boy. She allows that horrid Tommy of hers to 
kick and scratch and bite him until I wonder 
that he does not turn upon him and knock him 
over; and then, if Stoney resents such treat- 
ment, she whips and scolds him until it is 
enough to make an idiot out of him, or train 
him into a criminal.” 

“I am surprised to hear such strong words 
from you, darling. I had no idea that Stoney’s 
wrongs had so deeply impressed you. I think 
I must see Mrs. Carson to-day, and find out if 
she will place the boy with us.” 

“ Offer to pay her something, if she considers 
his time worth anything to her, and she will be 
sure to consent,” Grace shrewdly suggested. 

As the result of this conversation, Stoney 


22 Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

Cardington soon became a member of the Gor- 
don household. 

Tommy Carson whimpered and fretted for 
his “ole hoss” in vain. His angry passions, 
after Stoney had gone to his new home, had to 
vent themselves in kicks and blows upon the 
cat and dog, varied by occasional slaps given 
to his mother. Mrs. Carson bore these attacks 
of the small ruffian with excusing tenderness, 
and usually defended his conduct by saying: 
“It is all owing to that dreadful Stoney that 
you have such a bad temper, dear. He aggra- 
vated you until it is no wonder you want to 
slap and kick everything that comes about you.” 

If it had not been so sad it would have been 
amusing to notice how such injudicious words 
always bore immediate fruit in the added vim 
with which the young tyrant gave vent to his 
unrestrained anger by still more viciously at- 
tacking either dog or parent, whichever was 
nearest him. 

Truly, some mothers, who are as merciless 
as hyenas to others, evince such foolish and 
unwise tenderness toward those of their own 
brood as fosters all that is savage and evil in 
their natures. It is little wonder that such 
parents often live to have their hearts wrung 
with anguish over the evil conduct of these 
spoiled and ungoverned sons and daughters. 


CHAPTER III. 


NEW INFLUENCES. 

RACE GORDON liad no difficulty in win- 

X ning Stoney’s heart. To him she seemed 
truly angelic. He was not by nature a reticent 
child, although the unkind treatment he had 
received while with his aunt had tended to 
develop this trait. 

“Do you know what your real name is, 
Stoney?” she asked him one day after she 
had given him his usual morning lesson out of 
his primer. 

Mrs. Gordon had presented him with this 
highly-prized little book the first day of his 
residence under the Berkeley roof. 

“Stone-wall Cardington,” was his prompt 
reply. 

“ Why are you called by such a strange name 
as Stone-wall?” she inquired, with lively in- 
terest, placing her emphasis exactly as he had 
done. 

“’Cause he, the great man I’s named fur, 
alius stood like a stone wall when his en’mies 
was a botherin’ him,” was the boy’s reply. His 
eyes were brilliant with animation. 

23 


24 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

“Who told yon this?” was the girl’s next 
question. 

“ A man — a £ tramp ’ Annt Mandy called 
him — who come by onct, and stopped fur a 
drink o’ water. When I told him my name he 
put his hand onto my head and said just them 
words I telled you.” 

There was a moment’s silence, when, encour- 
aged by the smile upon the young lady’s lips, 
the boy added : “ He said I must alius stan’ as 
he did, like a wall befo’ my en’mies. An’ I 
have been a-doin’ it ever sence he told me.” 

“ Why, Stoney, what do you know about 
enemies? You are too young to understand 
what the word means,” Grace rejoined. 

His eyes kindled. 

“ No I ain’t. Aunt Mandy an’ Tommy are 
my en’mies, ’cause they hates me. An’ the man 
said a en’mv was anybody what hated you, an’ 
what wanted to hurt you.” 

Like a flash Grace saw into the heart of the 
child beside her. She understood why his 
aunt had found him stubborn and intractable, 
and she surmised that he had enthroned within 
his heart, as his model and ideal of manly 
greatness, his rude conception of General 
Jackson. Very tenderly she told him the his- 
tory of the gallant and noble man whose name 


New Influences. 25 

he bore, and lie listened to her with eager 
interest. 

“ As soon as yon learn to read nicely I will 
give yon a book containing the life of this grand 
man. It shall be for yonr very own, and as 
yon learn about him, and what a noble boy he 
was, and what a good man, as well as being a 
bold and fearless soldier and commander, you 
will want to grow up to be just like him.” 

“ I want to be like him now,” was the boy’s 
quick answer. 

Mrs. Gordon had entered the room while 
Grace was giving General Jackson’s history, 
and as she listened to Stoney’s earnest words 
her eyes filled with tears. She laid her hand 
upon his head as she said : “A noble ideal has 
saved many a lad from ruin. Be true to yours, 
Stoney, and you will become a good man.” 

The child did not understand her words. He 
asked: “What is being ideel? Aunt Mandy 
said I was a idle boy. She meant I was lazy. 
Do you mean that ? Is standin’ still ’fore your 
en’mies, an’ not workin’ while they bothers you, 
bein’ ideel?” 

Grace laughed a little over his confusion of 
ideas, and her mother tried to explain to him 
the meaning of ideal. She used this illustra- 
tion : “When I want to copy a portrait, I place 


26 


Stoney Gardingtori s Ideal . 


the picture right before me. Then I watch it, 
and study it until all its points are plainly im- 
pressed upon my mind, as well as being before 
my eyes. And then I begin to copy it, paint- 
ing everything exactly as it is in the picture 
before me. When I have done you could hardly 
tell which was the copy, for the pictures are so 
nearly alike. Here is a picture of Grace which 
I copied from one which hangs in the drawing- 
room,” she added, taking a portrait from the 
wall and holding it before Stoney. 

He examined it with a pleased smile. It 
pictured Grace upon her tenth birthday, and it 
presented a most charming face. 

“Now come with me, and see the painting 
from which I copied it,” Mrs. Gordon con- 
tinued. 

She led him into the adjoining room and 
paused before a fine oil painting. The boy 
gazed from the face upon the wall into the 
one held within the frame in Mrs. Gordon’s 
hands. 

“They’s just alike,” he said, in a surprised 
tone. 

“Yes, as nearly as I could make them. We 
paid a large sum of money to have this one 
painted which hangs upon the wall. The other 
one only cost me the labor of painting it,” she 


27 


New Influences . 

responded. “ I wanted one to keep close beside 
me while I sat over my sewing and reading. So 
I made this copy as exactly as possible like the 
other. This one on the wall, Stoney, was my 
ideal. Do you understand now what an ideal 
is?” 

“Yes, ma’am. It’s what you painted from. 
An’— an’,” he hesitated. 

“And General Stonewall Jackson’s life is to 
be the picture after which you are going to 
model, or paint, your life, Stoney,” she said. 
“ He is your ideal. You will have to be a very 
noble, manly boy, for he was one of the purest 
and grandest men that ever lived.” 

How deeply her words -and her illustration 
sank into the boy’s heart and fired his imagina- 
tion, she did not know. The future years re- 
vealed something of the impression made that 
day upon his plastic character. 

“ An ideal is much more than your illustra- 
tion showed,” Grace remarked, as her mother 
dismissed Stoney and seated herself by her 
daughter’s side. 

“Yes, but it gave him a tangible idea to 
grasp, and this is so needful in teaching a child. 
It is sad to think how low are the ideals which 
most children form for themselves. They are 
drawn, I suppose, from persons about them. 


28 


Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 


To form and cherish high ideals means much 
for any one, especially for the young.” 

“ Christ has been mine, mamma, ever since I 
can remember,” Grace responded, in a low tone. 

Gazing into her lovely face her mother 
thought: “Yes, and his matchless beauty is 
being stamped upon you more clearly every 
day.” She said aloud: “He is our highest 
ideal. Until a soul knows him, however, in 
spiritual worship and personal love, a lower 
one must answer.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


A BRAVE ACT. 



ERHAPS there never was a more eager 


little student than Stoney became. His 
work in the garden and among the flowers was 
dispatched as quickly as possible, and then his 
beloved primer was in his hands. 

Grace discovered that he sometimes attempt- 
ed, in a rude and awkward way, to form the 
letters of the alphabet in the sand with a stick. 
This soon induced her to teach him printing 
while he was still learning the rudiments of 
spelling. 

In less than three months he could read 
nicely all the lessons in his primer. Then he 
was given a First Reader, and very proud was 
he of this new treasure. 

In their daily association Grace told him the 
many interesting incidents of the past which 
clustered about Berkeley. These seemed to 
impress him deeply, and he never tired peering 
into the room where he was told one of the 
presidents of our great republic had first open- 
ed his eyes to the light of earth. 

Busy and happy amid the congenial sur- 


29 


30 


Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

roundings of his new home, and showing in 
every word and act his deep affection towards 
his kind friends, Stoney rapidly developed, 
both in mind and in body. 

Both Grace and her mother had become so 
fond of the boy, and were so pleased to notice 
his rapidly expanding mental powers, that they 
accorded him almost the position in the home 
of a brother and a son. 

Dr. Gordon was also much impressed by the 
boy’s bright bearing and by his evident thirst 
for knowledge. 

“ He shall become a physician if he so de- 
sires, and I will take pleasure in helping him,” 
the good man said to his wife. “ I am pleased 
to see that he seems to be altogether a Card- 
ington. Barring his unfortunate taste for drink, 
Jack Cardington was a noble man. I have no 
doubt but that his unseemly marriage was the 
cause of this sad habit. In his younger days 
no one ever suspected Jack of tippling.” 

“ I feel as though I had rescued a valuable 
jewel from destruction by taking Stoney from 
his aunt’s influence,” Mrs. Gordon rejoined. 
“He responds to love and kind treatment, as 
well as to firm rules, as no child would unless 
he possessed a truly noble nature.” 

About six months after Stoney had become 


A Brave Act. 


31 


a resident under the Berkeley roof, Mrs. Gor- 
don’s cook fell ill. In their dilemma Grace 
suggested that Mrs. Carson be asked to fill the 
gap. After some hesitation, for she did not 
enjoy having the shrill- voiced woman about 
her, Mrs. Gordon acquiesced. 

She did fairly well in the role of cook, but 
Tommy was a great annoyance to the entire 
household. His usual surly temper increased 
under certain restrictions which his mother, at 
Mrs. Gordon’s suggestion, deemed it best to 
place upon him. 

Both mother and son, one consciously and 
the other unconsciously, showed feelings of 
envy towards Stoney. It seemed to hurt them 
to see how happy and well cared for he was. 

Many spiteful things as to his former worth- 
lessness were said by his aunt, and she solemn- 
ly warned Grace “to look out, for he would 
yet prove to be a snake in the grass, ready to 
bite them in some unsuspected moment.” 

One day while his mother was busy about 
the breakfast, Tommy amused himself by play- 
ing in a fire which she had built in the back 
yard, over which she was heating water with 
which to begin the week’s washing. 

Stoney was near, tying some vines to a 
trellis. 


32 Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

“Look out, Tommy, or you’ll get a-fire,” the 
boy said, warningly. 

The small urchin’s only notice of the words 
was to distort his face into a hideous grimace. 

Having finished his work about the trellis, 
Stoney threw off his jacket preparatory to 
weeding out a flower bed. A shrill cry from 
Tommy caused him to turn swiftly towards the 
fire. He saw, with horror, that the child’s 
clothing was in flames. For an instant he 
stood motionless. Another cry from the child 
caused him to spring forward. His coat was 
still in his hands. He quickly wrapped this 
about Tommy’s blazing garments. As he did 
so the child screamed more loudly than ever, 
and began to kick Stoney’s legs, crying out : 
“Lem’me ’lone! lem’me ’lone! I hate you.” 

His would-be rescuer, for half a second, 
backed away. But the sight of the flames 
forcing themselves through the folds of the 
jacket which he had wrapped closely about the 
short figure of the burning child caused him 
again to spring forward This time he forcibly 
threw the screaming boy upon the ground, and 
rolling him over once or twice as if he had been 
a log, he proceeded to throw the soft sand, with 
which the yard was filled, over the prostrate 
form. So intent was he upon extinguishing the 


A Brave Act. 


33 


flames that he did not hear the kitchen door 
open, nor heed his aunt’s shrill cry as she 
noted the spectacle before her. 

A ringing slap across his cheek, followed by 
a tingling blow upon his ear, was his first inti- 
mation of her presence upon the scene. 

“Take that, an’ that, an’ that,” she said, in 
her high falsetto, following each word with a 
blow. “ I’ll teach you better than to roll Tom- 
my on the ground, an’ then throw dirt onto 
him. You think ’cause Miss Grace is a plumb 
fool over you ye can do as you please with 
Tommy.” 

The voice of Grace from an upper window 
came like music to Stoney’s tingling ears. Her 
tone was sharper than he had ever before heard 
from her, as she said : “For shame, Mrs. Car- 
son ! Tommy was on fire, and Stoney has 
probably saved his life.” 

Upon examination it was found that Tommy 
was not seriously injured. Several burns upon 
his neck and one under his chin showed that 
his young rescuer had not been any too prompt 
in staying the course of the flames. 

Although he made no complaint, Grace 
found that Stoney’s hands were badly blistered. 
Yery tenderly Mrs. Gordon dressed his burns, 
and spoke words of praise over his heroic be- 
3 


34 Stoney Cardin gton's Ideal. 

havior. Grace was also quite eloquent in her 
expressions of pleasure because of his bravery. 
From her window she had witnessed the whole 
scene. But fright and horror had kept her 
speechless until Mrs. Carson had made her 
furious attack upon Stoney. 

His aunt made no apology for her blows, 
merely stating that from what she knew of him 
she thought he had knocked Tommy down and 
was throwing dirt upon him for spite. Nor 
did she utter one word of thanks for his prompt- 
ness in saving Tommy from the effects of his 
naughtiness in playing with fire. Her dislike 
of Stoney was so intense that she seemed 
incapable of believing that he had actually 
saved her child’s life at the risk of his own. 
She seemed to believe, in spite of all that Grace 
could say, that some sinister motive lay behind 
his brave act. 


CHAPTER Y. 


AN UNWELCOME SUMMONS. 

T IME rolled rapidly on. Stoney had been 
amid liis new surroundings for nearly five 
years. He had been sent to school much of 
this period, and had repaid the care given him 
by becoming one of the most promising scholars 
in the neighborhood. The life of the illustrious 
Jackson had long been one of his choicest treas- 
ures. Grace laughingly declared that she be- 
lieved he knew the entire contents of the book 
by heart. 

Life looked very bright to the orphan boy, 
and the trials of his earlier years while with his 
aunt seemed as a troubled dream to him. 

One day Mrs. Carson came to Berkeley with 
news that sent a thrill of pain through every 
member of the household. 

“ Jim has come back, and he ’lows to go to 
farmin’,” she said, without preface. “ He has 
brought a good mule home with him, and he is 
going to get some oxen. He says Stoney has 
got to come home and help him on the farm.” 

“Jim” was the woman’s husband. He had 
been away from her ever since Tommy’s birth. 
35 


36 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

He was thought to be an honest, quiet man, 
who had been driven from his home by his 
wife’s sharp tongue. 

Upon what terms he had returned, no one, 
outside of himself and wife, knew. 

“ Oh ! but we can’t give Stoney up,” was Mrs. 
Gordon’s quick response. 

The boy, who was sitting upon the piazza 
studying his lesson, raised troubled eyes from 
his book as his aunt’s words reached him. 

“We f3el that we have a claim upon him, 
Mrs. Carson, because of all that we have done 
for him,” Mrs. Gordon added. “We are ex- 
pecting to educate him for a physician, and 
give him a chance to become a useful and hon- 
ored man.” 

Mrs. Carson’s eyes snapped. She said, in 
the shrill voice she always used when strongly 
moved : “ Stoney’s mother gave the boy to me. 
No one can get him away unless I choose 
to let him go. He’s been here long enough. 
He is plumb spoiled, an’ workin’ on the farm 
will make a man outen him. An’ Jim says 
he’s bound to have his help to run the place, 
an’ keep things ship-shape.” 

Grace now spoke. Although deeply resenting 
the woman’s attitude toward the boy, her tone 
was gentle and persuasive as she said: “I had 


An Unwelcome Summons. 37 

quite a nice legacy left me by my uncle last year. 
It is mine, to do with as I please. I will hire a 
negro boy for you, one who will be as useful 
as Stoney could possibly be to your husband. 
I am sure, Mrs. Carson, if I do this, you will 
be willing for Stoney to remain with us. Why, 
I love him as though he were my brother.” 

Her last words were unfortunate. Mrs. Car- 
son’s face, which had begun to look less acid 
under the influence of the young lady’s unex- 
pected and generous offer, darkened. She 
quickly said: “I know as how you are plumb 
foolish over him. That is one reason he must 
come home. He is that spoiled and set-up 
now, that unless he is brought to his senses he 
will carry just the high head Jack Cardington 
always carried, and will likely end in the same 
way. No, he’s got to come back on Saturday. 
Jim has enough work laid out to keep him and 
the boy busy all the year, and this will be better 
for Stoney than gittin’ high-up notions o’ bein’ 
somebody without workin.’ ” 

She would listen to no persuasion, and soon 
went home, saying to Stoney, whom she espied 
upon the piazza as she passed out: “Don’t you 
fail to come home on Saturday mornin’. Jim 
’lows he’ll be ready to give you your first taste 
o’ plowin’ then.” 


38 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal . 

It was now Wednesday. Stoney drew a long, 
sobbing breath, and ran into the orchard. 
Down upon his lace he threw himself, on the 
soft sod, and bitter tears ran from his eyes like 
rain. x4iter the first tempest of grief was over 
he strove to calm himself, but cruel sobs still 
shook him. 

“I will never, never go back to her,” he said, 
aloud. “ She will make me mean and sneaking 
and wicked. I feel wicked now, and yet Miss 
Grace said, only last Sunday, she believed I 
was a Christian. Oh, dear! And I thought 
so too. And here I am feeling as if I could 
choke Tommy, and hating, yes, just hating, 
Aunt Mandy.” 

Again his tears flowed, but this time they 
fell more quietly. He was a manly boy, and 
not for worlds would he have had any one see 
those tears. He hastily wiped them away and 
pressed himself closer to the ground as the 
sound of footsteps smote upon his ear. But he 
soon discovered it was only Jake, the negro 
boy, going past after the cows. 

For a long time the stricken boy sat under 
the boughs of the apple trees, trying to face his 
future. Once he whispered: “I wonder what 
General Jackson would have done if such a 
dreadful thing had come to him.” 


An Unwelcome Summons. 


39 


This question seemed to bring some light to 
him, for soon his face brightened and again he 
said: “She has no claim on me. It will make 
me bad and wicked to be there. I believe I 
would rather die, to-night, than go back. And 
I don’t believe he would go if he was in my 
place.” 

When he joined the family at the supper- 
table his face was pale, but no other trace of 
his hour’s agony was visible. 

Dr. Gordon said he would see Jim Carson 
and try and make some arrangement whereby 
Stoney could remain at Berkeley. But Mrs. 
Gordon and Grace, while expressing a fervent 
wish that he might be successful, did not enter- 
tain much hope. They recalled the vindictive 
expression which had marked Mrs. Carson’s 
countenance as she had declared that Stoney 
should no longer remain in his present home, 
and their hearts grew heavier with every pass- 
ing hour. 

“ If she insists upon taking you away, Stoney, 
we will still do all that we possibly can for you,” 
Grace said. “You shall have all the books 
you can read, and I will call by for you to ride 
with me to Sabbath-school every Sunday.” 

“And may I take all my clothes that you 
bought me ? ” the boy asked, turning to Mrs. 
Gordon. 


40 


Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 


“What a question, Stoney. Everything we 
have gotten for you belongs to you, for you to 
take with you wherever you go,” was Mrs. 
Gordon’s reply. 

That night Stoney lingered a long time with 
the family before going to his room. He 
seemed reluctant to leave them. At last Mrs. 
Gordon said, as she bent over him and kissed 
him upon the cheek : “ It is time you were in 
bed, Stoney. Don’t lose all hope. If it is pos- 
sible we will still keep you with us.” 

Grace arose and went over to him and laid 
her hand softly upon his head as she said : 
“Don’t forget to tell God about this trouble, 
Stoney. He will help you, and us, to do what 
is right.” 

For years the touch of her hand seemed to 
linger, like a benediction, upon his head. 

That night, as the midnight moon looked 
serenely down upon a sleeping world, a little 
figure, with a large bundle slung across a stick 
from his shoulder, stole noiselessly out of 
Berkeley, and took the road leading to Rich- 
mond. 


CHAPTER VI. 


ADRIFT. 

BEAT was the consternation in the Gor- 
\U~ don household when it was discovered 
that Stoney was gone. 

A note was found fastened to the pin-cushion 
on his bureau, addressed to Grace. It read : 

“ Dear Miss Grace : I am so sorry to go. 
It most breaks my heart. I am afraid to stay. 
I will grow mean and wicked if I live with 
Aunt Mandy. Some day, when I grow too old 
and big for her to make me live with her, I will 
come back. I will ask God to bless you and 
your mother and father every day. Good-bye. 

“Thomas Jackson Cardington.” 

It was written in the round, clear, school-boy 
hand which Stoney was so proud to have ac- 
quired. In several places it was splashed and 
blotted, and the family knew that these spots 
had come from his swiftly falling tears while he 
laboriously penned this parting token of his 
love. 

“ I wish we had some clue as to where he 


41 


42 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

has gone,” Mrs. Gordon said, wiping her eyes. 
The terror and desperation which filled the 
boy at the prospect of going back to the slavish 
life with Tommy and his annt was very clear to 
her sympathetic heart, and she had no word of 
reproach or condemnation for him. 

“I am almost glad he has gone,” Grace ex- 
claimed. “ If I knew he would find kind friends 
and a good home, I would be wholly glad. It 
seems to me it would be a dreadful sin for him 
to again be under Mrs. Carson’s influence.” 

“I will try and trace him,” her father said. 
“ If I can find him, I will either force Mrs. Car- 
son to give him up altogether, or arrange with 
some good people to take him until he is too 
old for her to order around.” 

But no trace as to Stoney’s whereabouts 
could be gotten. Once or twice Dr. Gordon 
thought he had discovered a clue, but each 
proved a false one. 

After some weeks the family gave up the 
search, hoping that the boy would voluntarily 
communicate with them, after a time, when his 
haunting fear of his aunt had partially sub- 
sided. 

“If he felt certain that we would not tell 
Mrs. Carson where he is, I am sure he would 
write to us,” Grace said, one day, after she and 


Adrift . 43 

mother had been talking over Stoney’s de- 
parture. 

“ I am afraid he would think she might dis- 
cover him if we knew where he is staying,” 
Mrs. Gordon responded. “I wish he could 
know that we would never allow her to trouble 
him again. I don’t yet see how we could pre- 
vent her from taking him, but I feel, now, as 
though I would protect him from her the same 
as if he were my own son.” 

But such words were now idle, for Stoney had 
as completely disappeared as though the earth 
had opened and swallowed him. 

Mrs. Carson was more shrill than ever in the 
expression of her anger when she found the boy 
had eluded her. At first, she seemed to think 
that the Gordon’s had secreted him, to prevent 
her from getting possession of him. 

But as the weeks passed, and it was plainly 
visible how anxious the family at Berkeley were 
about him, she dismissed this thought. Her 
whole spite then centered upon Stoney. 

“ If ever I lay eyes on him again, I will have 
Jim whip him within an inch of his life,” she 
said to Grace. “After all the care I gave him 
when he was too young to do a thing for me or 
for himself, it does seem hard to be repaid by 
his running away now, just when we need him.” 


44 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 


Her hearer kept a discreet silence, and turned 
the conversation by asking after Tommy. 

“He’s a helpin’ his paw,” Mrs. Carson re- 
plied. “He gits along splendid with Jim, most 
o’ the time. Jim, he’s a little hard on him, but 
Tommy knows I won’t stand much foolin’ where 
he’s concerned, and when Jim gets to bearin’ 
down too heavy, the child runs to me. He 
likes to be out in the field, and so he minds his 
paw, generally, fustrate.” 

“ I am glad he does,” Grace responded, feel- 
ing that such obedience was an epoch in Tom- 
my’s life. 

“I’m a-fearin’ he will work too hard, now 
Stoney ’s not here, a-tryin’ to help Jim,” Mrs. 
Carson continued. “ So I told him, yesterday, 
if his paw ever asks him to do anything he 
don’t want to do, he is to leave it alone, and come 
straight to me. I’d like to see anybody make 
Tommy do what he hadn’t a mind to while I 
am about,” and her eyes snapped ominously. 

Grace felt a thrill of gratitude sweep through 
her heart at the thought that Stoney was not 
at the mercy of this dreadful woman. Almost 
anything seemed better to her than that. 

“I hardly see what Tommy can do to help 
his father in the field,” she said. “He can’t be 
over six or seven years of age.” 


Adrift. 


45 


“ He’s just seven. But he’s right smart big- 
ger ’n most boys are at eight,” his mother re- 
sponded, with pride. “ He picks up stones to 
help clean the new pasture, and does lots o’ 
things. Yesterday Jim says a big ant stung the 
child while he was gettin’ the stones. He hol- 
lered, and his paw run to see what was the mat- 
ter. And if you’ll believe it, that boy was that 
hurt and mad that he threw a rock at Jim. 
His paw dodged, and when he found out that 
it was not a snake which had bite him, he was 
goin’ to flog him for chunckin’ the rock at him. 
But Tommy didn’t get nary floggin’.” 

Mrs. Carson paused to laugh, and Grace 
found herself wishing the child had not missed 
the correction which he so sadly needed. 

“ When Jim tried to hold him he kicked his 
legs until his shins are all black and blue ; and 
then he bit his hands and tore away from him, 
and came straight home to me. He knows 
who’s his best friend. And he was that out- 
done with his paw a-tryin’ to whip him when 
he was all smartin’ from the ant-bite, that he 
most cried himself sick. I had just fried a lot 
o’ doughnuts, and he ate up most all of ’em be- 
fore I could get him quieted.” 

“Are you not afraid, Mrs. Carson, that Tom- 
my will grow up to be very wicked unless he is 


46 Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 

taught to control his temper ? ” Grace asked. 
“A child with his disposition, unless it is re- 
strained in childhood, will very likely break 
your heart when he is older.” 

Again Mrs. Carson’s eyes snapped. She was 
assisting in the arrangement and decoration of 
a chamber for an expected guest. Mrs. Gor- 
don was not well, and Grace did not feel free to 
leave the woman alone. It caused her abso- 
lute physical pain to listen to her shrill voice 
and to her disagreeable words. 

“No, I’m not,” she replied, with emphasis. 
“ Temper is a good thing. I’d never have made 
out no ways without it. Jim’s got none is why 
he’s never forehanded. I’m glad Tommy has all 
he’s got. He’ll grow up to be o’ some account, 
and not one o’ the shiftless sort.” 

Grace was silent. It was a waste of words 
to offer advice to a woman of Mrs. Carson’s 
type. 


CHAPTEE VII. 


NEW SCENES. 

“ T ACK is a good boy, and he works well. 

I wish he would be content to ’bide long 
with us,” said Mrs. Tolley, Farmer Tolley’s 
buxom and good-natured wife. 

Their home was some ten miles out from 
Eichmond. 

“He is a-hankerin’ after the city, like mos’ 
boys of his age,” was her husband’s reply. 
“I’m sure I don’t grudge him the six dollars 
I’ve paid him, fur he has ’arned every cent of 
it. Long’s he’s sot on leavin’, I’m goin’ to give 
him a recommend to Dan Lawson. Mos’ likely 
he’ll find need fur him in his big grocery, if I 
tell him what an oncommon smart boy he is.” 

At this moment the subject of his remarks 
came into the room. One glance into the lad’s 
comely face revealed the fact that it was Stoney 
Cardington. He had been with Farmer Tolley 
and his wife ever since leaving Berkeley. They 
had taken him in, at first, out of sheer pity. 
He had been reticent about his past, merely 
stating that he was an orphan, and that he 
wanted to go to Eichmond to find work. He 
47 


48 Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 

had decided that he would never again be 
called Stoney. 

“ That is not my real name. I will be called 
Jackson after this. I could not bear to hear 
people call me Thomas, for it would always 
make me think of that dreadful Tommy,” he 
thought, as he trudged along, footsore and 
weary. He was, at the time he came to this 
decision, nearing the inviting-looking home 
among the trees where dwelt the kindly people 
who proved to be just the friends whom the 
loving hearts at Berkeley were praying God 
would raise up for him. He had now been 
with them for over two months. On the mor- 
row he was going with a neighbor of Farmer 
Tolley’s into Richmond. Mrs. Tolley had 
brought out a rusty-looking valise and told 
him to pack his things in it. She had. no use 
for it these days, she declared, and it would be 
handier to keep his clothes in than to have 
them tied up in a bundle. He gratefully ac- 
cepted it, and now he was ready for his de- 
parture. Six silver dollars were safely stowed 
away in his pocket, paid him by Farmer Tolley 
for his services on the farm and around the 
house during his nine weeks’ stay with them. 

Early tlie next morning he drove away in the 
wagon of Mr. Smith — the neighbor who had 


New Scenes. 


49 


good-naturedly offered to “give him a lift” 
when he found where he was going. Mr. and 
Mrs. Tolley stood in their door and gazed after 
him with many expressions of regret at his 
departure. 

“Jack,” as he was ever afterwards called, 
could not make himself feel willing to become 
a farmer. Had his ambition soared no higher 
he would gladly have remained with his kind 
friends on the farm. The hope of some day 
becoming a physician impelled him to seek the 
city. Once there, he felt sure he could find 
work, and, later on, a chance for an education. 
As they came in sight of the old line of fortifi- 
cations around the city, he asked: “What is 
that red line ahead of us? ” 

“ Them’s the breastworks. Many’s the gal- 
lant fellow who died behind them red lines 
durin’ the war.” 

And then the man launched into a descrip- 
tion of those last days of the Confederacy, so 
precious and yet so painful to every Southern 
heart. Jack listened with breathless eagerness. 
Emotions too deep for utterance swelled in his 
heart as incident after incident of those stirring 
and fateful times was recounted. 

“ Won’t you please let me get out a minute? ” 
he asked, as they came up to the line of the 
4 


50 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

old bulwarks. “You can drive on. I will 
overtake you before you go far,” he added. 

Mr. Smith complied with his request. The 
boy walked thoughtfully up the line of breast- 
works for some distance. Even the ditches 
were still there, half filled with water from 
recent rains. 

“I know father did not fight around Rich- 
mond, and yet I almost feel as though he was 
once hidden behind these very fortifications,” 
he murmured. 

Then he glanced about to see that no one 
was observing him. Reassured upon this point, 
he knelt down and whispered: “O God, I want 
to be just such a good and brave man as was 
General Jackson ; yes, and General Lee. Won’t 
you help me to grow up just like them? Make 
me a stone wall all my life when wicked people 
or wicked thoughts bother me. For Christ’s 
sake. Amen.” 

It was a simple prayer, but it came from his 
deepest heart. After it was finished he gave 
another thoughtful survey of the long red em- 
bankments of clay which mutely testified to 
former scenes of horror and bloodshed which 
had transpired beneath their shadow. Then 
he walked briskly on to overtake the wagon. 
He asked many questions as they entered the 


New Scenes. 


51 


city, being full of boyish curiosity about the 
strange sights and sounds that greeted him. 

“ Have you ever seen the statue of General 
Jackson in the Capitol grounds?” he at length 
inquired. 

“What, Stonewall Jackson? I reckon so. 
More times than you can count on all the fin- 
gers of your right hand,” was the reply. “ An* 
its sho’ like him. I saw him onct, and I’ll 
never forget how he looked. That figger in 
bronze is as like him as one pea is like to an- 
other. I was a servin’ right here, an’, of course, 
I think there never was a man nor a soldier 
quite up to Lee. But Stonewall Jackson was 
a mighty fine man, an’ folks do say he was 
ekal to Napoleon Bonaparte, so fur as bein’ a 
genera] went. His men just ’peared to love to 
be shot at when he was a-leadin’ ’em, an’ he 
alius led ’em to victory, that’s certain.” 

The boy’s eyes glowed with pleasure and 
pride as he listened to these words. 

“And he was a good man as well as a brave 
one,” he said softly. 

“That’s so. I’ve heered his men tell as how 
he alius prayed before he went into battle. He 
would sit on his hoss, and raise up his right 
hand, and never move fur a minnit or two. 
Then the boys knowed he was a-askin’ God to 


52 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal . 

go into the fight with him, and give him the 
victory.” 

“And it seems as if God always heard his 
prayer,” the boy responded. “I heard Dr. 
Gordon say once that God had to take Gen- 
eral Jackson to heaven before the Confederacy 
could be overthrown.” 

“P’r’aps he did. He sho’ took him, an’ we 
was sho’ beat,” Mr. Smith said. “It ’peared 
like hard lines then, but I’m a-thinkin’ it will 
work out all right for us in the end.” 


CHAPTEE Till. 


NEW FRIENDS. 

M E. SMITH dropped Jack, as we shall 
hereafter call Stoney, in front of a large 
grocery store on Blank street. 

“ I’ll call ’round to-night, to see what’s be- 
come o’ you,” he said, at parting. 

Armed with his note from Farmer Tolley, the 
lad, with his valise in his hand, presented him- 
self a moment later before the proprietor of the 
store. The man was standing in the doorway 
gazing down the street. 

Jack timidly inquired for “Mr. Lawson,” and 
was bluffly informed : “ I am your man. But I 
don’t know that I have any business to trans- 
act with you. Whose boy are you?” 

For an answer Jack produced his note. Mr. 
Lawson took it and read it carefully through. 
Then he looked the lad over and said : “ So 

you’ve been with Tolley, have you? Why 
didn’t you stay? He said he liked you and 
would have been glad to keep you.” 

Jack gave his reasons for wishing to come to 
Eichmond, and added: “Mr. Tolley thought 
53 


54 


Stoney CardingtorC s Ideal. 


you might need a boy about the store. Do 
you? I will try and please you, sir.” 

Mr. Lawson was a prosperous, good-natured 
man, and the farmer’s recommendation of Jack 
had been given in no uncertain terms. He 
rubbed his chin thoughtfully before he replied. 

“ I have got a boy, but he does not suit me. 
His time is not up for about a week yet. If 
you can knock around and take care of yourself 
until next Monday, I will try you.” 

This was satisfactory, for Jack had his six 
dollars, and he felt sure he could make this 
supply him with bed and food until the time 
designated. 

The grocery-man told him that he could stay 
about the store until Mr. Smith called in the 
evening, and probably the farmer would be able 
to take him with him to the same cheap board- 
ing-house where he always put up when in the 
city. 

J ack opened the nice snack which Mrs. Tolley 
had insisted upon preparing for him, and as he 
ate it he felt himself to be a very fortunate 
boy. 

“ God must be watching over me,” he mused, 
“ even if I am not as good as I thought 1 was 
before Aunt Mandy tried to make me go back 
to her and Tommy. I wish I did not feel so, 


New Friends . 


55 


just as if I’d like to be mean to her, and punch 
Tommy’s head, whenever I think about ’em. 
But I’m glad God still cares for me, and I’ll try 
to be as good as I can be if he’ll help me to get 
an education, and make me grow up to be like 
General Jackson. 

The boy did not know that in thus bargaining 
with God he was following the example of Ja- 
cob at Bethel. Nor had he any idea that his 
position was not just what it should be. If we 
could look into hearts as can our heavenly 
Father, it might be that we should find more 
persons thus placing an “ if” before their prom- 
ises to God, than we suspect. 

There were a number of clerks in the store, 
and Jack was much impressed by their nice 
clothing and by their manners. They seemed 
to be perfectly at home, while he felt so awk- 
ward and stiff that he wondered if he should 
ever be able to acquire their easy bearing amid 
all these strange surroundings. 

Towards sunset a boy of about his own age, 
jauntily dressed, and with such a jolly face as 
instantly won Jack’s friendly regard, came in. 

He helped himself to an apple, and then 
turned to inspect the young stranger. Jack 
was sitting upon a box, with his valise beside 
him. 


56 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 


“ I suppose you are the boy that father spoke 
about when he came home to dinner,” he pres- 
ently said. “ What is your name ? ” 

Jack told him, carefully emphasizing “ Jack- 
son.” He wished people would not shorten it 
to “Jack.” 

“ My name is Judd Lawson. Is this the first 
time you’ve ever been in Richmond ? ” 

They were soon engaged in an animated con- 
versation, and Judd asked him, after awhile to 
go with him to see his white rabbits. 

Mr. Lawson’s house was a very nice one in- 
deed, only a square from the store. It had a 
lovely yard in front, and the trees and flowers 
were very refreshing to the country boy, who 
was already tired of brick walls and paved 
streets. 

A handsomely-dressed lady, whom Judd 
called “ mother,” came out into the yard while 
.the boys were looking at the rabbits. 

Her face was pleasant, and she smiled kindly 
upon Jack when Judd said : “This is the new 
boy father is going to have when Nelson’s 
month is up. He doesn’t look much like Nelse, 
does he ? ” 

Again, Mrs. Lawson smiled, as she replied: 
“I hope his character is as different as his 
looks.” 


New Friends. 


57 


She stopped a few moments to chat with him, 
and as she did so she passed her arm lovingly 
about Judd’s shoulders. 

It reminded Jack of the many times Mrs. 
Gordon had thus shown her affection for him- 
self while he was at Berkeley, and the thought 
of her, and of the other kind friends there, 
brought a shadow to his face. 

“ What are you going to do until father is 
ready for you?” Judd asked as they walked 
back to the store. 

Jack told him that he was hoping Mr. Smith 
would find him a place to stay. When they 
reached the store the farmer had already come. 

He was much pleased at Jack’s success in 
getting a place with Mr. Lawson, but when 
asked about taking him with him to his board- 
ing-house, he said: “Why, I am on my way 
home, now. It’s moonlight, and I did not aim 
to stay all night in the city this time.” 

Jack’s countenance fell. It was now dark, 
and the lights were burning all over the city. 
How could he find a suitable boarding-house, 
with no one to show him the way, or to direct 
him? 

“ I’ll tell you. Come home with me to-night. 
Mother won’t care. There’s a cot in my room 
that she keeps ready for a cousin of mine who 


58 


Stoney Car ding ton' s Ideal. 


comes in from the country every once in a 
while*” Judd exclaimed. 

Mr. Lawson now came in, and hearing how 
matters stood, he said : “ Yes, turn in with Judd, 
to-night. To-morrow we will find you a board- 
ing place somewhere near the store.” 

Much relieved, Jack took his valise, after 
telling Mr. Smith good-bye, and gratefully ac- 
companied Judd back to the house. 


CHAPTER IX. 


SETTLED. 

A FTER supper was over Judd gave an 
hour to study, and then he and Jack had 
a delightful time. 

J udd was the only child in the family, and 
his visitor was fairly bewildered by the many 
costly and interesting things which the boy 
owned. One of his treasures was a beautiful 
pet squirrel. He was gray, with rich markings 
in black, and Jack thought him the handsomest 
creature he had ever seen. He was still quite 
young, and was confined in a lovely and ex- 
pensive cage. 

“ When he is older and fully tamed, mother 
says I can let him run about the house, some- 
times,” Judd remarked as they stood looking 
at the squirrel’s graceful movements. 

The lad gave him some nuts which the squir- 
rel at once proceeded to enjoy, much to Jack’s 
delight. 

“I have called him ‘ True,’ after the young 
man who gave him to me. His name was 
Trueman Mavvitte, and he died soon after he 
sent ‘True’ to me,” Judd said. “He was 
59 


60 


Stoney Cardington s Ideal . 


from the North, and ‘True’ is a real Yankee. 
But I like him just as well as though he was a 
born rebel, and Mr. Mayvitte was a splendid 
fellow. Almost as nice as though he had been 
a Virginian, ” he added, with a laugh. 

The next morning, greatly to Jack’s surprise 
and pleasure, Judd announced to him : “ Mother 
says you may stay with us, if you want to, and 
share my room.” 

Seeing that Jack did not fully understand, he 
added : “ Instead of hunting any other place to 
board, you can board here. That will be fun, 
for there will be lots of times when I can beg a 
holiday for you, and we can have jolly times 
together.” 

“ Judd has taken a great fancy to you,” Mrs. 
Lawson remarked. She had just entered the 
room and had heard Judd’s words. “So, as 
he wished it, you can consider this your home. 
We will board you cheaply, and I am sure you 
will find this arrangement more pleasant than 
going among strangers again.” 

Jack felt that his cup of happiness was about 
full. 

“ If you choose you can help me among the 
flowers till Mr. Lawson is ready for you,” she 
added. “You can thus pay your board by 
working until you begin to earn wages.” 


Settled. 


61 


This exactly suited the lad. He loved 
flowers, and he knew a great deal about the 
care they needed. This had been one of his 
chief duties while at Berkeley. 

The first day he spent entirely among them. 
The next morning Mrs. Lawson sent him on an 
errand which took him close to the capitol. 
She gave him minute directions so that he 
should not get lost, and he started off in blithe 
spirits. He had asked her if she was in haste 
for his return, and she had kindly told him 
“ no,” that he could look about the capitol and 
the grounds for an hour or so, if he wished. 

It was a very earnest-faced lad who, an hour 
later, stood gazing upon the splendid statue of 
General “Stonewall” Jackson. So rapt was he 
in his contemplation of it that he was oblivious 
to everything else. 

A young man with a genial face and distin- 
guished bearing, who was passing into the 
capitol building, paused a moment to notice 
the lad’s absorbed face. 

“Looks as though he was one of Carlyle’s 
hero worshippers, does he not?” he laughingly 
remarked to an elderly man who was by his 
side. “I seem to know his face, but I can’t 
recall where I have met him.” 

“ He looks as if the making of a hero might 


62 Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

be in him,”- was the response. <£ I never saw a 
nobler countenance. I know most of the lads 
who come around here, but he is a stranger.” 

They passed on, and Jack did not know for 
three long years how nearly he had come to 
again being in touch with his Berkeley friends. 

After that morning, whenever he was in the 
vicinity of the capitol he always went to take 
a look at his hero. Such visits seemed to 
strengthen him, and there came a time when he 
felt that he needed all the help he could get. 

The Lawson home was not a Christian one. 
At Farmer Tolley’s Jack had heard family wor- 
ship conducted as regularly as when he was at 
Berkeley, but here no one ever seemed to read 
the Bible or to offer prayer. 

When Sunday came, every one did as he 
chose. Sometimes Mrs. Lawson attended 
church, and tried to get Judd to accompany 
her, but oftener the morning was spent in 
lounging and in reading. In the afternoon she 
always went driving, and took her boy with her. 

As Jack and Judd became better acquainted, 
the former found many little blemishes in the 
petted boy’s character which quite startled him. 
He discovered, for one thing, that he was not 
always truthful, and that, unknown to his 
mother, he sometimes smoked cigarettes. 


Settled. 


63 


“Why don’t yon smoke?” he asked of Jack 
one day, when the latter had been at work in 
the store for about a fortnight. Jack smiled as 
he said: “I’ll tell you to-night when we go to 
our room.” 

He was pleased to find that his duties in the 
store were over every evening, except Saturday, 
by six or seven o’clock. He decided to enter 
a night-school without delay, and begin the 
course of education he so coveted. 

“ Now tell me why you are such a dunce as 
not to smoke,” Judd said, as their chamber- 
door closed upon them for the night. 

Jack went to the bureau drawer where his 
things were neatly laid away and drew out his 
cherished volume of the Life of General Jack- 
son. He turned to a certain page and read 
several paragraphs aloud. Then he said : “ If 
young Jackson knew that tobacco would hurt 
him, I ought to be as wise as he, with his ex- 
ample to help me.” 

“ Pooh ! He w r as a prig, any way. I’ve read 
about him. Of course I know he was a brave 
soldier, and all that,” Judd hastened to add, as 
he saw the fire in Jack’s eyes. “But he was 
always afraid to have a good time for fear he 
would do w T rong. I don’t like such fellows. 
What’s the use of being alive if you can’t have 


64 Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

fun?” and his jolly face gave force to his 
words. 

“Well, I want to be just such a boy and just 
such a man as General Jackson was,” was 
Jack’s response, given with much warmth. 
“ He is my pattern of a noble man.” 

“Oh! he was well enough to read about, but 
it does not pay to live like that, now,” Judd 
replied. “For my part, I want to enjoy my- 
self and have a good time every day.” 

“ So do I,” Jack responded. “ And I can 
have a good time without smoking your old 
cigarettes. You know, Judd, your mother 
would feel dreadfully if she knew you smoked.” 

“ Who cares. She is a woman, and she doesn’t 
know what a boy needs to make him have a 
jolly time. Doesn’t father smoke? And he 
drinks wine, and ale, and beer, and he gives it 
to me, sometimes, though mother thinks.it terri- 
ble for a boy to touch beer,” was Judd’s answer. 


CHAPTEK X. 


A BIRTHDAY FEAST. 

J ACK’S duties were various. He had to 
open the store in the morning, make the 
fires, and aid in anything he was called upon 
to do. 

One of his chief pleasures was to help de- 
liver groceries. Sam, the negro driver, taught 
him to be a careful driver. Being fond of 
horses, and already knowing something about 
them, he soon became quite expert in thread- 
ing his way among the crowd of vehicles which 
often thronged the streets through which they 
passed on their daily rounds. Sam compli- 
mented him upon his efficiency in handling the 
reins, and Jack felt very proud of his accom- 
plishment. 

Finding that he had become so skilful in this 
direction, Mrs. Lawson often asked him to drive 
her carriage for her when she went calling. 

He had entered a good night-school, so that 
he now had little leisure to give to Judd. This 
piqued the boy, and he scoffed at Jack’s per- 
sistency in attending to his studies. 

“After working all day, what in the world do 
5 65 


66 


Stoney Cardingtoii' s Ideal . 


you want to work at night for ? ” he querulously 
asked. He missed him in his evening games 
of checkers and backgammon, in which Jack 
had joined him until he began his school duties. 
Although Mrs. Lawson good-naturedly offered 
to fill Jack’s place, Judd was not satisfied. 

“ I would not go to school another day,” he de- 
clared, “if father and mother did not make me. 
I hate books. I d rather go in Sam’s place and 
deliver groceries than study. When I’m a little 
older I m going to stop, and go to work in the 
store. I know almost as much now as Jenkins 
or Brady, and they know enough to make good 
clerks.” 

Such words seemed to trouble Mrs. Lawson, 
but Judd was not very careful about giving her 
pain. 

“ I wish, Judd, that you were more like Jack,” 
she responded on this occasion. “ If you were 
as diligent about your studies as he is, how I 
would rejoice! He will grow up into a smart, 
capable man, while you, unless you attend to 
your books better, will be a know-nothing.” 

“ I’ll know enough to have a good time, any 
way,” he replied, laughing. Judd’s ill-humor 
never lasted long. 

Mrs. Lawson discovered that Jack’s birthday 
came only two days later than Judd’s. He had 


67 


A Birthday Feast . 

been in bis new home only four months when 
his thirteenth birthday rolled around. 

“ I always give Judd a birthday dinner, to 
which several of his intimate friends are in- 
vited,” Mrs. Lawson said to Jack, about a week 
before this period arrived. “As you are so 
nearly of an age, and as he is so fond of you, I 
shall ask Mr. Lawson to give you a holiday and 
permit you to share Judd’s happy day.” 

She did so, and the good-natured grocery- 
man, who was becoming quite attached to Jack, 
for he did his duties promptly and well, was 
perfectly willing to grant her desire. 

The house was lavishly decorated with flow- 
ers, and the dinner was a most elegant affair. 
There were four invited guests, and Judd 
seemed about as happy as a boy could well be. 

A tiny wineglass was placed beside each 
plate. When the servant asked Jack if he 
would take wine, he was about to refuse; but 
Mrs. Lawson, noticing this, said: “I only al- 
low Judd to drink wine twice a year — once on 
his birthday, and again at Christmas. This is 
very mild, and it cannot possibly harm you. 
Do take a glass, Jack, in which to drink Judd’s 
health.” 

Thus urged, and seeing that every one else 
at the table already had the sparkling, amber 


68 Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal. 

beverage in bis glass, he allowed his own to be 
filled. Later, when Judd’s health was pro- 
prosed, he did as he saw the others do, sipped 
about half of his wine. The taste was delight- 
ful, and the glass held such a small quantity 
that it really seemed true that it could not 
possibly harm him. It was his first taste of 
any intoxicant, and, had he dreamed of the 
curse his heredity had entailed upon him, he 
would not have dared touch it. 

He thought that he had never felt quite so 
jolly in his life as he did during the remainder 
of that feast. A gentle glow seemed to pervade 
his entire being, and he found himself chatting 
with the boy next to him with an ease and 
pleasure that surprised him. 

He drank the last drop of wine from his 
glass, and wished that it had held just a little 
more. It did not taste at all as he had ex- 
pected, but it was so sweet and mild that it 
was hard to believe that a larger quantity of it 
could harm him. 

“Mother, give us just half-a-glass more of 
the wine,” Judd pleaded ; and his father sec- 
onded his request by remarking: “It is the 
weakest stuff that I ever tasted. A gallon of it 
couldn’t harm the boys. Give them each a 
second helping.” 


A Birthday Feast. 


69 


So the tiny glasses were all refilled, and the 
merry lads, as they nibbled their cake and 
nuts, emptied them, not one of them dreaming 
of the serpent that lay coiled at the bottom. 

After the dinner was over, games were intro- 
duced, and such a happy, lively time Jack had 
never before experienced. 

Judd’s presents from his parents and friends 
were very handsome indeed; and Jack thought 
that he ought to be the most contented boy in 
the world, instead of being, as he so often was, 
peevish and fault-finding. 

Late at night Jack was surprised to find that 
his head was aching. This was something new, 
but he attributed it to the quantity of rich food 
of which he had so freely partaken at dinner. 

The next morning Judd was cross and “ all 
out of sorts,” as he expressed it ; and Jack felt 
great sympathy for him. He experienced much 
the same feeling, although his habitual self- 
control enabled him to hide it from others. 

“It is a good thing that birthday dinners do 
not come oftener than once a year,” Mrs. Law- 
son remarked. “I have noticed that Judd is 
always peevish after his is over. The nuts and 
candy and cake and raisins probably give him 
a touch of indigestion. I never limit him in 
his eating on his birthday, and he certainly in- 
dulges more fully than is well for his health.” 


CHAPTEK XI. 


A CRITICAL PERIOD . 

NE night about a week after the birthday 



\J dinner, Judd asked Jack to hurry home 
from his school, for he wanted him to go around 
to see Hugh Brandon with him. 

Hugh was one of the guests at the dinner, 
and Jack had liked him very much. 

So he hastened back as early as possible, 
and blithely accompanied Judd around the 
corner where the Brandons lived. 

They found Hugh and his older brother, 
Charley, and two sisters, engaged over a game 
of cards. 

“Mamma is out, and she said we might sit 
up with Hugh and Charley until she got back,” 
Bertha, the younger girl, explained to Judd as 
a reason why she was up until past nine o’clock. 
Her usual hour for retiring was eight. 

“We have just finished one game, and you 
and Jack must take a hand with us in this one,” 
Hugh said, after the lads had been given seats 
around the table. He began shuffling the 
cards. 

“All right,” was Judd’s answer. 


70 


A Critical Period. 


71 


“But won’t it keep us out too long?” Jack 
suggested. “Your mother said we must not 
stay late.” 

“ Oh ! she won’t bother about us. She knows 
I’m all right when I’m over here,” Judd re- 
plied. 

Jack looked ac the cards and hesitated. 
Grace Gordon had often told him while he was 
at Berkeley that he must never touch gambling 
cards. 

“Surely these cannot be that kind, or Mrs. 
Brandon would not allow her children to play,” 
he thought, gravely regarding the cards as they 
were being distributed. He ventured to say to 
Judd in a low tone: “I have never played 
cards. These are not gambling cards, are 
they?” 

“ There’s no more harm in playing these cards 
in this game than in playing checkers,” Hugh 
answered, rather scornfully. 

“ No, this game is all right,” Charley added, 
noticing Jack’s perplexed face. 

Charley was almost sixteen years of age, and 
he considered himself almost a man. “ Mother 
likes to have us play these harmless games, for 
she says they will amuse us and keep us from 
wanting to run with bad boys,” he added. 

Thus assured, Jack was soon absorbed in the 


72 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal . 

game. The elder girl, Lois, volunteered to 
teach him how to play, as she had given her 
place at the table to Judd. Bertha also had 
ceased taking part after the boys entered. 

It was half-past ten o’clock before Jack and 
Judd bade the Brandons good-night. They 
found Mrs. Lawson quite annoyed over their 
long absence, but when she found that they had 
been with the Brandons all the time she seemed 
satisfied. 

Several times during the next few months 
Jack found time to go with Judd over to see 
these pleasant young neighbors, and they al- 
ways had a game of cards before they left. 

One day at dinner, in speaking of the Bran- 
dons, Mrs. Lawson said: “They are a nice 
family of children. There is but one objection- 
able thing in their habits, and they are not to 
blame about this. They play cards. It was 
Mrs. Brandon herself who taught them.” 

Jack looked into her face in surprise. Could 
it be possible that she alluded to the games he 
and Judd so much enjoyed when they visited 
the Brandons? 

She noticed his questioning glance and 
added : “ I suppose they never play cards when 
you are there, for Judd promised me long ago 
that he would not join them. They are too 


A Critical Period. 


73 


polite to indulge in a game in which their 
guests could not join.” 

“ What is wrong about the cards? ” Jack in- 
quired. It took some courage to ask this ques- 
tion, for Judd was opposite him at the table, 
and he had felt a kick upon his ankle which 
told him that the lad wanted him to keep quiet. 

“ Oh ! they are gambling cards, and I am 
afraid for Judd to handle them. I have a 
horror of them. I had a brother once who 
gambled. He was shot and killed in a gam- 
bling hall. I never wish Judd to touch one.” 

Jack’s heart was filled with dismay at her 
words. He stole a glance across the table at 
Judd. The lad’s face was flushed, but he as- 
sumed a careless air as he said : “ Can’t I turn 
True out of his cage for a while, mother? He 
is so tame, now, that I am sure he would go 
back all right.” 

Thus diverted, Mrs. Lawson said no more 
about the cards. 

“And so I’ve been playing with gambling 
cards after all,” Jack mused. “What would 
Miss Grace think of me if she knew? Well, I 
need not ever play again. And, yet, how I did 
enjoy the games. What a pity there is harm 
in them.” 

Then his thoughts turned to Judd. Again 


74 


Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 


he was forced to admit that he was not a good 
boy. He was sincerely attached to him, and 
he hated to think him a really bad one. 

“ He does not mean to be bad,” Jack assured 
himself. “He thinks his mother does not 
know what is best for boys, that is all. I won- 
der how Mr. Lawson feels about cards?” 

It was not long after that before he had an op- 
portunity of seeing that Judd was worse than he 
had been willing to believe. 

Sometimes Jack remonstrated with him for 
the way he constantly deceived his mother, but 
he always defended his conduct by saying: 
“ Father does not care. He knows what boys 
are, and what they need to make them have a 
good time.” Then he added: “Mother would 
make a girl out of me if she could. She is a 
jolly good mother, but she doesn’t understand 
a boy.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

A NARRO W ESCAPE. 

J ACK was so handy wherever placed that 
both Mr. Lawson and his wife began to 
look upon him as almost indispensable to their 
comfort. Time passed rapidly and brought 
him near his fourteenth birthday. He pro- 
gressed rapidly in his studies, and was far 
ahead of Judd, although the latter had never- 
done anything in all his life but attend school. 

Mrs. Lawson frequently, these days, requested 
her husband to permit the boy to be her driver 
as she rode out for an airing or to call upon 
her friends. It gave Jack great pleasure thus 
to be trusted with the management of her 
horse, for the animal was a mettlesome crea- 
ture, and required gentle, firm, and watchful 
care. 

One day Mrs. Lawson asked him to drive 
her to Hollywood. Jack had only seen the 
cemetery from the outside, and he was much 
pleased to get a nearer view of it. The after- 
noon was lovely, and with a basket of flowers 
with which to decorate the grave of a friend 
who had recently passed away, Mrs. Lawson 
75 


76 Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

entered her carriage. She bade Jack drive 
rapidly, as she wished to be at home at a cer- 
tain hour. The horse needed no urging, and 
the distance between Mr. Lawson’s residence 
and the cemetery, which was over two miles, 
was soon passed. The name of the horse was 
“ Lightfoot,” given her because of her speed 
and the ease with which she travelled. Jack 
had accustomed her to his voice, and a sincere 
affection seemed to exist between him and the 
intelligent creature. He saw that she was espe- 
cially nervous this afternoon, probably caused 
by the freshness of the breeze, which was blow- 
ing cool and crisp from the west. He fre- 
quently spoke to her in quiet and soothing 
tones, but she still started at every unusual 
sound, and was inclined to travel more rapidly 
than her driver deemed exactly prudent. 

Mrs. Lawson, observing her manifestations 
of excessive spirit, urged Jack to be watchful. 
But the lad needed no admonition, for he knew 
that the safety of the one who had chosen him 
to be her driver depended upon his care and 
skill in managing “ Lightfoot.” He had antici- 
pated much pleasure from the drive to and 
through the lovely cemetery, but the attention 
he was forced to give to the horse excluded 
every thought of observing his surroundings. 


A Narrow Escape. 


77 


Just as they were passing through the spacious 
gateway which led to the city of the dead, a dog 
suddenly sprang towards them from the road- 
side, barking noisily. This startled “Light- 
foot,” and she sprang forward. The road was 
now descending a hill. Jack drew the reins 
firmly to curb her speed before she got beyond 
his control. As he did so the right rein 
snapped. This left him powerless to check 
her. He dared not pull the remaining rein, 
for this would draw her to one side, and might 
easily cause the carriage to upset. Feeling no 
restraint upon her, “ Lightfoot’s ” pace increased 
to a run. Jack had only a moment in which 
to decide what course to take. Mrs. Lawson, 
seeing their danger, gave a cry and hid her 
face in her hands. The lad discovered, to his 
horror, that the top of the hill which they must 
ascend in another moment was lined with car- 
riages. Evidently there was a funeral, and the 
carriages were drawn up near the grave. If he 
could manage to spring upon “Lightfoot’s” 
back he felt sure he could check her. He had 
ridden her under the saddle several times, and 
had found her especially pliant to the voice of 
her rider. But how was he to reach her back 
in time to save her from dashing in among the 
line of carriages? 


78 Stoney Cardington s Ideal . 

“ If I sit still it is almost certain death to me 
as well as to Mrs. Lawson. I might as well 
die in one way as another, and there is a chance 
of my stopping ‘ Lightfoot ’ if I can reach her 
back.” 

These thoughts flashed through his brain with 
the rapidity of lightning. It had only been a 
moment since the rein snapped and the terri- 
ble danger confronted them. By the time the 
frightened animal had reached the bottom of 
the hill, after passing through the cemetery 
gate, Jack was standing upon the swingle-tree 
of the carriage. For an instant his head grew 
dizzy. Then he felt a wave of confidence and 
courage sweep over him. The next moment 
his hand was upon “ Lightf oot’s ” back, and his 
voice was calling her by name. As he stepped 
forward upon the shaft, only sustained by his 
hand upon the running horse, it seemed he 
must be dashed under her feet. He felt he 
was going — gone. But instead, he gave a leap, 
and in some way, he never knew how, he 
reached her back. He clung to her until he 
was firmly poised, and then he swiftly seized 
the reins. He leaned forward to grasp them as 
close to her mouth as possible. He kept re- 
peating her name and speaking to her in a 
quiet and soothing tone. Before the top of 


A Narrow Escape. 


79 


the hill was reached he had her under control, 
and was able to turn her safely aside from the 
line of carriages into an open avenue. Several 
gentlemen came hurriedly up, and one of them 
grasped “Lightfoot” by the bits. She was 
brought to a standstill, trembling with nervous- 
ness and fright. 

“That was a brave thing that you did,” one 
of the men said, while another assisted Mrs. 
Lawson to the ground, and remarked to Jack: 
“ Had any one told me that any boy, except a 
circus-bred one, could have gotten from a car- 
riage on to the back of a running horse, as 
I saw you do, I would have said ‘the thing 
is impossible.’ How it was that you were hot 
dashed to death upon the stones, I cannot 
see.” 

Many other expressions of surprise, and words 
of praise for his bravery, greeted him. Mrs. 
Lawson’s low, “I owe my life to your brave 
act, Jack,” meant more to him than all the rest. 

A few lines in the morning paper, telling of 
the incident in no lukewarm spirit, stirred the 
boy’s heart with keen pleasure. 

“I am so glad to know that I am not a 
coward,” he reflected. “I hoped I was not, 
but this is the first time I have ever been 
tested.” 


80 Stoney Cardiflgton s Ideal. 

He had forgotten how dauntlessly he had 
rescued Tommy from a horrible death by fire 
while he was yet but a wee laddie. That had 
seemed to him such a simple thing to do, and, 
in fact, the only thing left for him to do, that 
he had never considered it as exhibiting any 
special courage. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


NOT ANCHORED . 

T HERE was some danger at this period of 
J ack’s head being a little turned. So 
much was said about his courage that he be- 
gan to feel that he was quite a hero. 

Judd was loud in his words of praise, and 
often declared that he was sure be would never 
have thought of risking his life as Jack had 
done. 

The Brandons were also outspoken in their 
appreciation of the courage he had exhibited, 
and soon invited him and Judd over to a birth- 
day dinner given to Hugh. Wine was upon 
the table, and Jack drank it without protest. 
Indeed, he had used it upon several occasions 
since that birthday dinner of Judd’s, which had 
first introduced him to its subtle and enticing 
flavor. 

Christmas had seen it again upon the Law- 
son table, and twice since upon festive occa- 
sions the tiny glasses had appeared beside the 
plates. Mr. Lawson had called for them, and 
his wife had acquiesced, her faint scruples 
6 81 


82 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

overcome by her husband’s assurance that 
“such mild stuff couldn’t hurt a baby.” 

Insensibly Jack had begun to feel a keen 
thrill of pleasure whenever the dainty glasses 
appeared. Had any one spoken of it to him 
he would have said that it was largely because 
they were so pretty, and so added to the beauty 
of the lavishly-spread board. 

He had never touched cards since he had 
discovered them to be those against which 
Grace Gordon had warned him. In vain Judd 
and the Brandon boys laughed at him, and 
urged him to join them in the games he had 
found so fascinating before he learned of their 
danger. He was proof against their blandish- 
ments, and he felt, for a time, that he was really 
proving himself to be a veritable stone wall of 
firmness. But he gradually found that he was 
losing some of his repugnance towards many 
things he had esteemed as evil. The use of 
tobacco no longer seemed to him an inexcus- 
able habit. Every clerk in the store used it in 
some form, and Mr. Lawson was rarely seen 
without his cigar. Judd continued to smoke 
cigarettes upon the sly, and sometimes he even 
ventured upon a cigar. 

To say that Jack, during these days, never 
felt tempted to indulge in this prevalent habit 


Not Anchored. 


83 


would not be true. He had never yielded, but 
the fact that he felt so strongly inclined to in- 
dulge himself shocked him. 

One day when he was in Mr. Lawson’s pri- 
vate office the groceryman opened a bottle of 
ale. The lad saw the foaming liquid poured 
into a glass and then tossed off by his employer, 
with shining eyes. How good it did smell! 

Turning towards him and pouring out about 
the third of a glass, Mr. Lawson said : “ Try it, 
Jack. Your head is steady, and it won’t harm 
you. I wouldn’t trust Judd very often, but you 
are different.” 

With thanks the boy took it and drained 
every drop. After that it was no unusual 
thing for this to occur when Jack visited the 
office. Indeed, he soon got to looking forward 
with keen pleasure to being summoned there, 
for he knew the ale would probably be await- 
ing him. He no longer read in his Bible. In 
truth, he had almost forgotten that he owned 
one. His life of General Jackson still, at times, 
delighted him, and he often visited the capitol 
expressly to gaze upon the face of his hero. 

One evening after he had finished his studies, 
he was looking in his bureau drawer for some- 
thing. His hand struck against his Bible. He 
took it out and looked at it. Memories of 


84 Stoney Cardwgton's Ideal. 

Berkeley and of the dear friends there thronged 
over him. Judd was in his bed and asleep. 
Jack sat down and opened the sacred book at 
random. Was it an accident that he turned to 
the twenty- third chapter of Proverbs? His 
eye first rested upon the twenty-ninth verse: 
“Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who 
hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who 
hath wounds without cause? Who hath red- 
ness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine ; 
they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not 
thou upon the wine when it is red, when it 
giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth it- 
self aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent 
and stingeth like an adder.” 

He read the verses over slowly and thought- 
fully. “Why, it says wine. I knew whiskey 
was dreadful, but wine seems so harmless.” 

Again he read the solemn words. His heart 
sank. Must he give up ever again tasting wine ? 
How he wished he could go to Grace and pour 
out his heart to her, or to Mrs. Gordon. He 
felt confused and troubled. There was no one 
to whom he could go for help or advice. He 
sat a long time in thought. At last he decided 
that it would be safer, in view of the words he 
had just read, not to drink even the mild wine 
which Mrs. Lawson sometimes placed upon her 


Not Anchored. 


85 


table. He had not long to wait before his de- 
termination to abstain was tested. A guest 
from a distance was to dine with the family, 
and again the dainty glasses were upon the 
table. This time Mr. Lawson insisted upon 
having them placed there, for he wished thus 
to honor his expected guest. When the ser- 
vant reached for Jack’s glass to till it, he shook 
his head. He was sitting next to Mr. Lawson, 
who noticed his refusal. With a jolly laugh 
the groceryman lifted the glass and held it for 
the sparkling liquid to fill it as he said : “ This 
wine is some of my choosing, Jack. You must 
try it and see if it is not finer than the weak 
stuff Mrs. Lawson has been putting us off with.” 

So he drank it, almost glad that he had such 
a good excuse with which to quiet his con- 
science. 

It was, indeed, fine wine, being nothing less 
than the best Burgundy. 

Jack’s head felt a little queer after he had 
swallowed it, but this soon passed. He 
thought he had never before enjoyed one of 
Mrs. Lawson’s elegant dinners quite so much 
as he did that one. But he experienced a feel- 
ing of self-contempt when at last he was free 
to examine his own heart. “I don’t seem to 
be much of a stone wall these days,” he said to 
himself. “ I wonder what is the trouble ? ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


AN UNSTABLE WALL. 

OME days after the dinner and the wine. 



h_) Jack sought the spot where he seemed to 
derive more help than from any other source. 
It was a very sad pair of eyes that were lifted 
to General Jackson’s unresponsive ones. 

“ There is our young hero- worshipper again,” 
said the distinguished-looking young man who 
had noticed Jack the first day the lad had vis- 
ited the capitol, almost three years previously. 
The same elderly gentleman who had been by 
his side on that occasion was again with him. 

“I wonder who he is, anyway,” the young 
man continued. “ I have seen him so often in 
that very spot, and in that identical position, 
that I believe I could paint him. I was talk- 
ing to Grace about him the other day, and she 
is quite anxious to meet him. She thinks that 
he may be a genius, one who has an idea of 
becoming a sculptor. He really looks to me as 
though he worships that statue.” 

“His fondness for studying it is certainly 
extraordinary,” the elder man replied. “ If he 
did not seem so absorbed, I should feel tempted 
to speak to him.” 


86 


An Unstable Wall. 


87 


They lingered a moment longer, and then 
went on their way. 

Jack was wholly unconscious that any one 
had observed him; but he longed to be away 
from all eyes, and wished that he was free to 
go where he chose. But he must return to the 
store; so he turned away, not having received 
the help and strength for which he longed. 

As the days passed he became depressed in 
spirits. This was so unusual that his altered 
manner soon attracted the notice of the family 
as well as of the clerks in the store. 

He could give no reason for this change. He 
was scarcely conscious himself why he felt so 
differently. The truth was, he was now under- 
going a series of peculiarly fierce temptations. 
His appetite was clamoring for many things 
which his aroused conscience told him were 
wrong. The odor of Mr. Lawson’s cigars made 
him long inexpressibly to try one. 

It seemed, during this season, that tempta- 
tions were continually placed before him. Even 
Mrs. Lawson unwittingly added to his troubles. 
He went to the house one afternoon upon an 
errand. He found the usually robust lady re- 
clining upon a couch. She told him that she 
felt strangely weak and faint, and asked him to 
go to a certain closet and bring her a bottle of 


88 Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 

wine. He did so, and, following her directions, 
opened it and poured some of the liquid into a 
glass. She drank it and said: “Now I shall 
feel better. Take a little, Jack. It is the mild 
kind which I always keep on hand. You look 
pale. A glass of this will help you.” 

He refused, although the odor tempted him 
strongly to indulge. Those words from his 
Bible seemed to stare him in the face. He al- 
most ran out of the house and back to the store. 
He did not think to pray, as he had been wont 
to do in former days, while the influence of the 
godly Gordon family was still about him. 

As he entered the store, and while he was 
feeling himself to be quite a victor, in that he 
had not touched the wine, a summons came for 
him from the office. Mr. Lawson wanted to 
send him upon an errand. He attended to it 
with unusual celerity, and was back to report 
to his employer long before the latter expected 
him. 

“You are just in time, Jack, to help me out 
with this ale,” he said, in his jolly way. 

“No, thank you, sir; I don’t wish any to- 
day,” the boy replied. 

“ Nonsense ! You haven’t been looking well 
of late. A taste of this will help you amaz- 
ingly.” 


An Unstable Wall. 


89 


He reached the glass, half-full of the foam- 
ing beverage, towards him as he spoke. Be- 
fore Jack could again refuse, his employer 
added: “You need not feel afraid of it, Jack. 
This is not intoxicating. You would have to 
drink a gallon of it before you could feel any 
bad effects. Even temperance people use ale 
when they need a tonic. Come ! It will help 
bring back the color to your face. You begin 
to look quite peaked.” 

So, without further protest, Jack drank it, 
and soon felt a pleasant glow and a sense of 
new strength throughout his system. 

“ I suppose it really cannot be harmful, or it 
wouldn’t make me feel so much better,” he 
thought; “and it is only against wine and 
strong drink that the Bible warns us.” 

But after the stimulating effects had passed 
away, he began to feel that probably he had 
done wrong in breaking his resolution never 
again to touch it. Had there been any one to 
warn him, and to show him that the fondness 
for all intoxicants, which was so strong within 
him, was an inherited taste, and that any in- 
dulgence became far more dangerous for him 
than for one not possessing this bias, his con- 
flict would probably have been over. He pos- 
sessed a really strong character, but he was 


90 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

confused, and what he saw those about him 
constantly doing, without any apparent injury, 
seemed to him could not be so wrong as his 
purer instincts declared it to be. 

Mrs. Gordon and Grace had decided, while 
he was with them, that it was better, for a time 
at least, never to allude to his father’s weakness 
in his presence. His aunt had so constantly 
thrown this into his face that these loving hearts 
felt that it would be wiser only to speak of the 
many virtues which had made of Jack Carding- 
ton, at one period of his life, a most noble and 
lovable man. Had they known that the orphan 
was to be so soon separated from them, they 
might have uttered words of warning which 
would now have borne good fruit. 

So J ack drifted along, sometimes feeling that 
he was true to his early ideal, but oftener trou- 
bled in a vague way with the thought that the 
stone wall which he had so longed to become, 
was rather an unstable structure as exemplified 
in his life. 

His confusion as to what was really right 
and what was really wrong, was deepened by 
the fact that both Mr. and Mrs. Lawson more 
and more held him up to Judd as being almost 
a perfect character, and one that they desired 
him to imitate. This naturally fostered his self- 


A n Unstable Wall. 


91 


love and flattered his pride, and there were 
seasons when he held his head with the air of a 
conquering hero. At such times he would have 
warmly resented any hint that he was betray- 
ing weaknesses which marked him for defeat, 
unless a change was soon wrought in him. 


CHAPTER XY. 


GATHERING CLOUDS. 

J ACK’S fifteenth birthday passed, and the 
boy began to feel the thrill of coming man- 
hood permeate his being. He was now em- 
ployed as a trusted clerk in Mr. Lawson’s store. 
He still continued his studies in the night- 
school, and his diligence had won for him many 
words of praise from his teachers. He had 
confided to Mrs. Lawson and to Judd his hope 
of some day becoming a physician. The former 
had encouraged him in this desire. 

“ It will give you a position in society to be- 
come a doctor, which Judd can never reach if 
he is a groceryman, like his father,” she 
shrewdly remarked. 

Jack and Judd had drifted far apart during 
the past months. The latter had become 
weary of having the boy, who had come to 
them almost as a beggar, held up to him as a 
model. A feeling almost of dislike, of late, had 
taken possession of him, and he was often cross 
and spiteful toward Jack. He had formed a 
careless habit of leaving his things thrown about, 
92 


Gathering Clouds. 


93 


just as he laid them down when he entered 
his room. Various small articles which he 
valued, had, from time to time, been lost. 
Once it was a pair of nice gloves. Again, a 
white silk handkerchief had disappeared, and 
at another time it was a lovely necktie which 
was gone. 

Mrs. Lawson urged him to put his things 
neatly away in his dressing-case, as he saw 
Jack do, saying that the articles he had missed 
would be found somewhere, tossed aside just 
as he had left them. 

“More likely Jack’s got ’em. He is fixing up 
for a dandy doctor, and he’ll need all the fancy 
things he can muster,” Judd retorted. He was 
half in fun and half in earnest. 

“For shame, Judd! You know you don’t 
mean that. It is wrong, though, to say such 
things even in jest,” his mother reprovingly 
answered. 

Of course Jack was not present. 

“Well, he’s none too good to take ’em. He’s 
not half the saint you and father make out. I 
lost a two dollar bill last week, and the very 
next day he paid two-dollars for a pair of shoes, 
and he had not received anything on his wages 
for two weeks. I believe he took the bill out 
of my pocket after I was asleep. He’s always 
up, mooning around, after I am in bed.” 


94 Stoney Cardingtons Ideal. 

Judd’s tone was spiteful, and Lis usually 
jolly face was red with ill-feeling. 

“My dear, you shock me,” was Mrs. Law- 
son’s reply. “Do you know that would be 
stealing? Jack would never be guilty of that, 
and especially not from you, who have been 
like a brother to him.” 

Judd tossed his head as he said: “Oh! of 
course he would not call it stealing. He’d say 
he had only borrowed it.” 

The very next week Judd lost five dollars. 
This was quite serious, and his father repri- 
manded him sharply for his carelessness. 

“I laid that five-dollar bill on the bureau 
when I went into my room, meaning to put it 
away when I turned up the light. I forgot 
about it, and when I looked in the morning it 
was gone. It could not have walked away,” 
he said, sullenly, and looked straight at 
Jack. 

The latter did not seem to notice the glance, 
and soon left the room. 

Then Judd blurted out his suspicions : “Jack, 
I just know, has got that money. You know, 
father, he does not get enough to have any 
laid away. He pays high for his schooling, 
and I have often heard him planning how to 
save something out of his wages so as to get 


Gathering Clouds. 


95 


some little thing he wanted. Yet I saw him 
the other day looking over his money when he 
didn’t know I was near, and he had quite a roll 
of it. He’s not quite as perfect as you think he 
is, and he’ll fleece you yet, unless you watch him.” 

Mr. Lawson reproved Judd for his words, 
yet he went to the store with a very sober 
face. Ho might not have noticed his boy’s 
suggestion, except to sharply reprove him, had 
it not been for an annoying little discrepancy 
which had occurred in a collection Jack had 
made the previous day. 

The bill called for a certain amount, but 
Jack had brought back just two dollars less 
than was due. 

Mr. Lawson had accidentally met the man 
who had paid the money, only a few hours 
afterwards. The bill had been due for months, 
and the man said : “ I’m glad to be square with 
you once more, Lawson. Sorry I was so long 
in paying you.” 

“Yes, it is all settled now but two dollars,” 
the groceryman replied. 

“But I paid every cent I owed you yester- 
day,” the man said, in a surprised tone. “And 
your clerk receipted the bill,” he added. 
“ Better keep an eye on your clerks, Lawson. 
It’s a temptation to place money in their hands 


96 


Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal. 


as you do. Excuse me, but your way is too 
free and easy for these times. You are honest 
yourself, and you expect every one else 
to be.” 

‘‘No, I don’t. I only trust Jack. He is as 
honest as I am. He will be able to explain, 
no doubt,” was Mr. Lawson’s reply. 

But Jack had no satisfactory explanation to 
give. 

“ I receipted the bill, as he says, but I counted 
over the money very hurriedly. I must have 
counted it wrong, and Mr. Neely must have 
made a mistake in the amount he gave me. I 
am very sorry, sir. I will be more careful an- 
other time.” 

Mr. Lawson had accepted this as the true 
explanation of the deficit, until Judd’s words of 
suspicion had been uttered. Then an uneasy 
feeling which he found it difficult to banish 
entered his breast. 

A few days later he overheard Jenkins, one 
of his clerks who had been with him for a num- 
ber of years, say to Jack : “ Why don’t you get 
one of those stunning ties they have at Ken- 
ney’s? They are all the style. The one you 
sport is a back number.” 

Jack replied: “I wanted one as soon as I 
saw yours. But I can’t spare the money.” 


Gathering Clouds. 


97 


“Pooh! You get almost as much, now, as I 
do, and I manage to keep in style,” Jenkins re- 
joined. 

For a moment Jack made no response. Then 
he said : “ But my school bills are pretty steep, 
and my books cost like anything. I have 
more things to plan for, out of my wages, than 
to dress in style.” 

Mr. Lawson looked very solemn as he heard 
these words. 


7 


CHAPTER XVI. 

HOMELESS. 

J UST two months later Judd rushed into 
his father’s room one morning, saying : 
“ Father, those two five-dollar bills you gave 
me for my shoes and tennis racquet are gone. 
I tied them in my handkerchief, for I could not 
find my purse, and laid it on my bed last night, 
and now I cannot find it anywhere. I meant 
to have put it under my pillow when I went to 
bed, but forgot it.” 

His father and mother both accompanied 
him to his room, the latter saying: “It has 
probably slipped behind the bed. Why didn’t 
you put it in the drawer, as I have so often told 
you to do? ” 

Jack had been gone from the house for over 
an hour. It was still one of his duties to open 
the store every morning. 

A diligent search failed to reveal the handker- 
chief or its contents. 

“Father, Jack has got it. I know he has,” 
Judd exclaimed, at last. 

“ It does look like it,” Mr. Lawson reolied 
“Np one else has been in the room.” 

98 


' Homeless . 


99 


Again they searched in every corner and pos- 
sible hiding place, but without finding the ob- 
ject sought. Mr. Lawson’s face grew very stern. 

“This is too much,” he exclaimed. “After 
all that I have done for that boy, to have him 
turn out a thief.” 

Mrs. Lawson indignantly defended her favor- 
ite, but neither Judd nor his father would listen. 

“ I bet, father, he’s got it put away in that 
bottom drawer. He feels sure no one will sus- 
pect him, for he knows how perfect you and 
mother have always considered him, and he 
wouldn’t think of hiding it.” 

“I see his plan,” Mr. Lawson suddenly ex- 
claimed. “Last week he asked me for a three 
days’ holiday. He said he had some friends 
up in the country he used to live with before he 
went to Tolley’s, and he wanted to go and see 
them. I promised to let him off to-morrow. 
He has taken the money to help him get some 
presents for his friends, no doubt, and to make 
them believe he is a big fellow. He is feeling 
his oats too much, anyway, of late.” 

Judd chuckled as he listened, and said: 
“He seems to think he owns the store and 
everything about him. I’m going to look for 
the money.” 

Without waiting for any answer, he drew out 


100 Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal. 

the lower drawer of Jack’s dressing-case. At 
first he did not find what he expected. But 
after a moment’s search he triumphantly drew 
out from under various articles piled over it, a 
tiny barrel, or toy keg, such as candy is some- 
times sold in. 

“ He keeps his money in this,” he said, pro- 
ceeding to open it. He drew out a piece of 
carefully-folded paper. In this, as he opened 
it, lay revealed four five-dollar notes. 

“That settles it,” Mr. Lawson exclaimed, with 
his face growing several shades redder than 
usual. “He could not have got that money 
honestly. His school bills have been high, and 
his books have cost a good deal. He does not 
get as much as Jenkins, and Jim can hardly 
make ends meet, pinch as he will.” 

In vain Mrs. Lawson pleaded for the absent 
boy. Her husband only relented enough when 
reminded that she owed her life to his courage, 
to promise her that he would take no steps 
against him, nor would he expose his dishon- 
esty to the clerks. This last was wrung from 
him by his wife’s tearful portrayal of the boy’s 
hopeless and helpless condition if it got out 
that he was a thief. 

“ But he must leave my premises at once,” he 
sternly said, much to Judd’s satisfaction. 


Homeless . 


101 


So, before two hours were over, Jack Card- 
ington, feeling himself disgraced as well as 
homeless and friendless, was lying upon his 
face in a little room in a third-class boarding- 
house. He was sobbing as only a strong-na- 
tured boy can sob when he feels that all his 
earthly hopes are suddenly blighted. 

“ Don’t lose courage,” Mrs. Lawson had 
whispered to him as he went away. “ I don’t 
believe you took the money any more than I 
believe I took it myself. But I can’t prove 
this, and until I can, you will have to go. But 
I will find where it went, before long, and you 
will come back to us again.” 

These words had brought a little balm to his 
wounded and outraged heart, but his wrong 
was too deep for him to be easily comforted. 

Mr. Lawson had refused to listen to any ex- 
planation as to how he had become possessed 
of the twenty dollars which had seemed to seal 
his guilt. 

“ To think,” the boy sobbed, “ after I have 
done without things I needed so dreadfully all 
this time, just to save a little, each month, to 
lay away to help me begin my studies to be a 
doctor, that I must be called a thief. If I was 
one, I couldn’t have stolen from them after they 
have been so kind to me.” He almost felt that 


102 Sto?iey Cardingtori s Ideal. 

his heart must break under his weight of suf- 
fering. 

It was hard for him to believe that the past 
few hours were not a horrible dream. And to 
think the blow had come just as he was on the 
eve of realizing his long-cherished plan of vis- 
iting Berkeley. 

. As often as the longing had seized him to see 
the dear friends of his earlier boyhood, he had 
comforted himself by saying: “When I am 
fifteen years old I will go back and visit 
them. I will be too old for Aunt Mandy to 
order me ’round, then, or for her to try and 
force me to live with her.” And to-morrow 
was to have witnessed this eagerly-longed-for 
visit. 

At last he could no longer bear being shut up 
in the stuffy room where he had gone in his 
first hour of sorrow. So he washed away the 
traces of his tears, and pressing his hat low 
over his forehead, he went upon the street. It 
was still only twelve o’clock, although it seemed 
to him that days must have passed since Mr. 
Lawson, in angry tones, had told him to take 
his things and leave his premises forever. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

IJV HOLLYWOOD. 

J ACK did not hesitate as to his course. He 
found his way at once to Hollywood Ceme- 
tery. Once there, he went to the base of the 
stately monument which loving hearts have 
erected to the memory of the thirty thousand 
brave men who sleep almost within the circle 
of its shadow, and flung himself upon the soft 
grass. As his eyes travelled over the long 
array of narrow mounds, he almost wished that 
he, too, was lying there. 

“But they died honored and loved. If I 
died now, I would leave a disgraced name be- 
hind me,” he bitterly thought. 

He turned his face to the sod, and the grass 
seemed almost like caressing fingers upon his 
cheek. Tears again welled to his eyes. How 
long he had been there, lost to everything but 
the sense of his sudden and overwhelming sor- 
row, he did not know. Steps upon the walk, 
almost at his side, aroused him. He sat up 
and then stood up, with his hat in his hand, as 
he saw that a lady, young and beautiful, was 
before him. After one swift glance he was 
103 


104 Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal . 

about to turn away. But lie saw that he had 
startled her by his sudden uprising from among 
the mounds, and with a low “excuse me,” he 
again glanced into her face. Something in her 
eyes, in her features, sent a quick thrill to his 
heart. He eagerly scanned her countenance, 
and then said, in a voice trembling with joy 
and surprise : “ Miss Grace ! It is Miss Grace ! ” 

The lady at once responded to his glad ex- 
clamation by saying: “Stoney Cardington! 
How glad I am to find you ! ” 

Yes, it was, indeed, Grace Gordon who took 
both his hands in her loving clasp, and looked 
into his eyes with all the affection of the old-time 
days when she had held him almost as a brother. 
After the first joy of their unexpected meeting 
had somewhat subsided, Grace said: “I am 
now Mrs. Harvey Grayson. You remember 
Mr. Grayson used to visit me before you left 
Berkeley. I have been his wife for over six 
months, and my home is now in Richmond.” 

Then she noticed the shadow that was over 
the noble face she remembered so well. The 
light which had illumed it as he recognized her 
had faded, and now he looked haggard and 
stricken. 

“Stoney, you are in trouble, great trouble. 
What is it ? Open your heart to me, dear. I 


In Hollywood . 105 

love you just the same as in the old days,” she 
said softly. 

As she spoke she seated herself upon one of 
the narrow mounds, and Jack instantly dropped 
upon his knees beside her. He poured out his 
story of grief and disgrace, often choked in his 
rapid utterance by emotions which it took all 
his power of self-restraint to conquer. 

Grace had many questions to ask as to his 
life with the Lawsons up to the present time. 
During these questions, which were necessary 
to place Jack’s life clearly before her since she 
had last seen him, the boy said : “ Mr. Law- 
son’s believing me to be a thief is not the only 
thing that troubles me. I have not lived up to 
my ideal, Miss Grace. I have always wanted, 
always meant to, but somehow I know I have 
failed. I can’t tell exactly how or why, but I 
know it is a fact. I am not the stone wall I 
expected to become when I took General Jack- 
son for my hero and my model.” 

Grace listened to his words with a tender 
smile upon her lips. Jack thought she was 
more like a heavenly being than ever, and his 
heart went out afresh to her in loyal love and 
boyish admiration. 

“Have you remembered to be true to God, 
Stoney, during these years we have been sepa- 


106 


Stoney Cardingtori! s Ideal. 

rated? Have you prayed every day, and fed 
your soul by reading his blessed word?” she 
gently inquired. 

“I have never failed, not one night since I 
left Berkeley, to ask God to take care of me, 
and to keep me from becoming a wicked man ; 
and I have never once forgotten to ask him to 
bless you and Mrs. Gordon and Dr. Gordon,” 
he replied. 

“ And how about the reading of the Bible ? ” 
she asked. 

“I haven’t read that regularly at all,” he 
promptly confessed. “In fact, I have only 
opened it a few times during the past year.” 

“Suppose, dear, you had forgotten to give 
your body proper food for the last year, at 
regular and never-failing periods, in what con- 
dition do you suppose it would now be?” 

“ Starved,” he unhesitatingly said. 

“Yes ; and you have been starving your soul. 
The vital truths that fill God’s holy word are as 
needful for the sustenance of the spiritual life 
as is bread for the physical.” 

She paused and looked searchingly into his 
face. Then she said : “ I am wondering, dear, 
whether you .have ever been really born again. 
I hoped so when you were at Berkeley, but I 
may have been mistaken. What is your thought 
about it, Stoney ? ” 


In Holly viood. 


107 


“ I don’t know,” he replied, thoughtfully. “ I 
remember that I felt very wickedly toward Aunt 
Mandy and Tommy when I left Berkeley, and 
I have never been able to keep from feeling 
the same way whenever I think of them.” 

“The first thing,' then, for you to do is to 
seek God with all your heart. It is he alone 
who can make you right toward your aunt as 
well as toward every human being. Until his 
Spirit enters your soul through conversion, you 
cannot keep evil thoughts from your heart or 
evil acts from your life. Only his power can 
hold you. You have no power of your own.” 

A deep sigh came from Jack’s lips. His eyes 
suddenly filled with tears. But he did not 
speak. 

“Did you ever think, Stoney, why General 
Jackson was the peerless man he was? He 
chose God as his portion in his boyhood, and 
it was the Spirit of the living, loving Christ 
which filled him, and made of him the godly 
man we know and love. You have been trying 
to live his life without having the mighty 
power which held and swayed him, to hold and 
mould you. Is it any wonder you have failed? ” 

“No, it is not,” Jack said, while tears drop- 
ped slowly down his cheeks. “I see now 
where my trouble has been. But how can I 


108 Stoney Cardi^gtori s Ideal. 

get God’s Spirit? I do want to do right, and 
I do want to get the dTeadful hatred towards 
Aunt Mandy and Tommy out of my heart. But 
I don’t know how.” 

Grace laid her hand tenderly upon his shoul- 
der as she said: “God is~ seeking you, dear, 
more intently than you are seeking him. He 
sent you to me to-day, because he wants to 
bless you and to make your heart right. He 
saw that you needed help. You are to go 
home with me, Stoney. I shall not again let 
you slip away from me.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A GUEST ADMITTED. 

ND so the homeless boy was again among 



JL\. loving friends. He found that Doctor 
and Mrs. Gordon had also left Berkeley, and 
were now living in the city with Grace. 

It was a joyful time when Stoney again ap- 
peared in their midst. 

When Mr. Grayson met the lad, and shook 
hands with him, he exclaimed: “Why, it is 
our hero-worshipper. I thought I knew your 
face when I first saw you at your place of wor- 
ship, but I could not place you. Of course I 
used to see you at Berkeley, when I first lost 
my heart to this dear little lady,” and he 
stroked his wife’s cheek with caressing fingers. 

“ What do you mean by calling Stoney a hero- 
worshipper ? ” Mrs. Gordon inquired. 

The young man explained about the many 
times he and his partner, Lawyer Denham, had 
seen Jack before the statue of General Jackson 
in the capitol grounds, and Grace at once said : 
“ I always wanted to see that boy you so often 
told me about. Yet how little I dreamed it was 


109 


110 Stoney Cardington's Ideal . 

our Stoney. I wonder, now, I did not connect 
the two.” 

Very tender and wise were the words she 
spoke to Jack that night, after he had gone to 
the cozy little room which she said was hence- 
forth to belong to him. She marked many 
passages in the Bible for him to read, and then 
said: “Although we have been together at fam- 
ily worship, I want to kneel with you here, 
Stoney, and ask God to make you and seal you 
his own dear child. I am anxious for you to 
have the witness of his Spirit to the fact that 
you are really his. I never again wish to feel 
a doubt upon this point, nor do I want such a 
doubt to have any place for lodgment in your 
own heart.” 

And so, with his hand closely clasped within 
hers, they knelt beside the bed, and Grace 
poured out her heart to God in prayer. Long 
before she had finished Jack was in tears. 

“ Now, Stoney, will you not pray for yourself? ” 
she said, as she concluded her earnest petition. 
His heart was so eager for divine help and 
light, that he did not wait a moment, but be- 
gan at once, in broken utterances, to tell God 
of his sore need of his forgiving love and cleans- 
ing power. 

As he prayed, the sense of his deep need 


A Guest Admitted. 


Ill 


seemed to increase. At last his voice ended in 
a sob, and he wept instead of continuing his 
prayer. 

“Eemember, dear, that the work of your 
salvation has all been wrought, once for all, 
upon Calvary. All that you have to do is to 
believe that Christ bore your personal sins, and 
that through his atoning blood you are now 
free. Paul tells us, through the inspiration of 
the Spirit, that a man is justified by faith. 
And listen, dear, to the words of our blessed 
Christ himself, when he says : ‘ He that heareth 
my words and believeth on him that sent me, 
hath everlasting life, and shall not come into 
condemnation, but is passed from death unto 
life.”’ 

Jack’s sobs had ceased, and he now raised 
earnest eyes to Grace, as he said : a I do be- 
lieve that.” 

As he spoke a change seemed to mark his 
face. He arose from his knees and said, as 
though addressing his own soul, as well as God, 
ui Is passed from death unto life.’ Yes, I see. 
I must have passed, for I do believe.” 

“ Yes, that is all. Faith is the only channel 
through which our gracious Lord can put eter- 
nal life into the soul,” Grace said, as she stood 
beside him. Her heart was pleading with every 


112 Stoney Cardingtov? s Ideal. 

breath she drew that the Holy Spirit would 
bear witness to the lad’s having passed from 
death unto life. 

After an interval of silence, in which she saw 
that his lips moved in prayer, he said very 
quietly: “It’s all right, now. How very sim- 
ple it is. I don’t know how, but I feel that 
I am different. God seems so real to me, and 
everything that troubled me is taken away. 
Oh, how glad I am! Now I know him. I 
never knew him before. I thought I did at 
Berkeley, but I was mistaken.” 

Grace bent forward and pressed her lips to 
his cheek. He smiled, but seemed too absorbed 
to give much heed to the caress. 

“ Good-night,” she said. “ Bemember, Christ 
is now formed in your heart. He will hence- 
forth be your strength, and the power that will 
enable you to live a noble life for him.” 

She went out, seeing that it was best to leave 
him alone with the One who had just been so 
sweetly revealed to him as his Saviour and his 
God. 

“ There is joy in heaven to-night,” she 
thought, with beaming eyes. “Another soul is 
born into the kingdom of God ; another heart 
has opened and Christ has come in. Oh, my 
gracious Lord, how I praise thy holy name! 


A Guest Admitted. 


113 


Enable me to give this child of thine the help 
he will need from day to day, until he grows 
strong in thee ! ” 

She told her husband of the joy that filled 
her heart, and he was much pleased to know 
that Jack felt he was now a Christian. 

“It was years after I joined the church be- 
fore I had the consciousness that I was con- 
verted,” he said. “I have often felt since that 
I lost so much by not sooner realizing the fact. 
I think, perhaps, we are not careful enough to 
teach young people to expect and look for the 
witness of the Spirit after they have definitely 
accepted Christ as a personal Saviour.” 

“ Of course I know that God does his work in 
different ways, with different souls,” Grace re- 
joined. “I was so fully conscious when I en- 
tered into life, that I always long for others to 
realize the same sweet experience.” 

“And yet it is faith, not feeling, that brings 
salvation. How we do need wisdom from above 
to enable us to rightly help souls find eternal 
life through faith in Christ. If I knew him as 
fully and as intimately as you do, darling, I 
should feel satisfied. I would not so often hes- 
itate and wait, when I know people are needing 
the help that I ought to be able to give them,” 
Mr. Grayson responded, with much emotion. 

8 


114 Stoney Cardington' s Ideal. 

“ Suppose you take the first two verses of the 
twelfth chapter of Homans, and ask God to show 
you exactly what they mean,” his wife softly 
rejoined. “Perhaps you have not yet fully en- 
tered the life of sweet union with Christ which 
he desires you to know, and which can only come 
after one passes through the gateway of those 
two verses. It is a very narrow gateway, 
dearest, and strips one of everything but 
Christ.” 


CHAPTEK XIX. 


CHANGED. 

J ACK’S face was a very happy one when he 
appeared before the family at the break- 
fast table the following morning. There was a 
quiet peace about him which told its own story 
of a heart freed from some burden which had 
been pressing upon it very heavily. 

He went up to Mrs. Gordon at the close of 
family worship and said : “ I want to tell you 
how happy I am. • You explained to me once, 
when I was at Berkeley, what an ‘ideal’ was. 
Perhaps you guessed then that General Jack- 
son was mine. He was then, and he has been 
ever since. But last night I found out who his 
ideal was, and now I have also taken him for 
mine.” 

Mrs. Gordon was deeply moved by his words. 
She quickly understood his meaning, and said : 
“ I am so glad, Stoney. General Jackson was 
a fine model, but Christ has power to transform 
your whole life and make you like himself. Do 
you know this ? ” 

“I am beginning to understand it a little. 
115 


116 Stoney Cardin gton' s Ideal. 

Oh ! how different everything seems. Miss 
Grace showed me how to find him.” 

His eyes turned to her with love and grati- 
tude as he spoke. She had come up and was 
standing beside him. 

“Human ideals are good, and they do help 
one to reach a higher life than would be possi- 
ble without them,” she softly responded. “ But 
only Christ enthroned in the heart has power 
to cast out the evil within us and fill us with 
his own wonderful love.” Then she looked 
smilingly into Jack’s face and asked: “How do 
you feel toward your aunt and Tommy this 
morning? Would it give you pleasure to 
‘ punch ’ your cousin’s head as you spoke about 
yesterday, and to 4 pay your aunt back ’ for her 
unkindness to you by being ugly and miserable 
toward her ? ” 

Jack laughed happily as he replied No, 
indeed. It is wonderful how differently I do 
feel towards them. I really believe I love 
them now, and I have been planning how I 
might make Aunt Mandy happy. How is she, 
anyway? ” 

“Very unhappy. Her husband has again 
left her, and Tommy is as bad as you can 
imagine he would naturally be by this time 
under his mother’s mistaken treatment. Mrs. 


Changed. 117 

Carson’s health has broken, and I am afraid 
she is having a hard time to support herself 
and the boy since we came to Richmond,” was 
Mrs. Gordon’s reply. 

Jack’s eyes kindled. 

“ I don’t know yet, of course, just what work 
I can get to do, but I shall soon find something. 
When I do, I know I can save a little every 
month to send Aunt Mandy. It will please 
her, I know, and it will make me so happy to 
do it.” 

Mrs. Gordon and Grace smiled over his en- 
thusiasm, and the latter said : “ Yes, it would 
please her very much.” 

Mrs. Gordon inquired: “Have you given up 
your old desire of becoming a physician, 
Stoney?” 

“No, indeed,” was his quick response. “I 
don’t know how I am to manage it, but I still 
expect to become a doctor.” 

“ If that is God’s plan for you, as I believe it 
is, he will open some way for its accomplish- 
ment,” she responded. 

Dr. Gordon, being well known in the city as 
an able and experienced physician, already had 
his hands quite full. For the next few days he 
asked Stoney to aid him in making his rounds 
by becoming his driver. He still owned the 


118 


Stoney Cardingtons Ideal. 

pretty thorough-bred, Selim, which the boy 
remembered with keen pleasure, for many had 
been the jolly rides he had taken behind him, 
as well as upon his back, in the old Berkeley 
days. 

One afternoon as he was holding the reins 
while Dr. Gordon was calling upon a patient in 
the suburbs of the city, Mrs. Lawson came up 
the street. A negro boy was driving her carri- 
age. She recognized Jack and at once ordered 
the boy to stop. Her greeting was just as cor- 
dial as though his departure from her house 
had been that of an honored guest. 

She asked him where he was staying, and 
seemed delighted to find that he was among 
old friends. She took down his address upon 
her pocket tablet, and smiled as she said : “I 
see you are with ‘tony’ people, Jack. I know 
who the Graysons are, and I also know that 
lovely home of Mr. Harvey Grayson’s on Jeff- 
erson street. I shall soon call to see you, and 
I am sure I shall have good news for you when 
I come.” 

It warmed Jack’s heart to hear her affection- 
ate tone and kind words. While he had always 
been conscious of the great difference between 
her blunt but cordial ways and the refined and 
cultured atmosphere of the Gordon home, yet 
he was truly attached to her. 


Changed. 


119 


Her unswerving faith in his honesty and in- 
tegrity, when the others of her household had 
turned against him, had drawn his heart still 
more closely to her, until now it thrilled him 
with keen pleasure to again meet her. 

Dr. Gordon came out while she still lingered. 
She seemed loath to drive on. Her vehicle 
was almost against the doctor’s, and her driver 
was told to move a little to permit Dr. Gordon 
to enter his carriage. 

Jack hastened to introduce them, and Mrs. 
Lawson at once said: “I am delighted to see 
that my dear young friend, Jack, has become 
your guest. I know of you through my friend, 
Mrs. Nelson, whom you recently attended 
through a spell of fever. I could hardly wish 
anything better for Jack than for him to be 
under your care.” 

Dr. Gordon smiled and bowed as he replied • 
“We feel that he is now at home, and that we 
are the ones indebted to you for your kindness 
to him while he was away from us.” 

With another kindly smile he told Jack to 
drive on. Mrs. Lawson also went on, feeling 
greatly relieved about the boy who had grown 
so dear to her heart during his stay in her 
home, and about whom, since his departure, 
she had passed many unhappy and anxious 
hours. 


CHAPTER XX. 


A SUDDEN DEATH. 


HE Lawson household was in quite a state 



1 of agitation. True, Judd’s pet squirrel, 
had done a very naughty thing. He was often 
permitted to roam at his pleasure through the 
house, care being taken that he should not 
escape upon the street. For several days no 
one had remembered to give him the daily 
hour or so of liberty which so much delighted 
him. He was restless and uneasy in conse- 
quence, rapidly turning his wheel, and chatter- 
ing in a wa}^ that disturbed Mrs. Lawson. 

“I am going out after breakfast, or I would 
give him his airing now,” she said. “ I never 
like to turn him loose unless I am in the house 
to watch the doors and keep the servants from 
letting him get upon the street. But I can’t 
stand his noise. Do put his cage into the hall, 
Judd, until after I have finished my break- 


fast.” 


So Judd carried his pet into the front hall, 
and dropped the kernel of a nut into his mouth 
as he went on his way to school. There True 
remained until the evening, forgotten and neg- 
lected. 


120 


A Sudden Death . 


121 


The following morning proved to be chill 
with rain. Jndd went for his overcoat, which 
hung upon the rack in the hall. A quick ex- 
clamation from him brought Mrs. Lawson to 
his side. 

“ Just look there,” he said, ruefully. “ My 
new coat is ruined. That little rascal, True, 
has cut it awfully.” 

One glance showed the truth of his words. 
All the bottom part of the back of the hand- 
some coat was cut into shreds. 

“You should have been careful not to place 
the cage so near the rack,” Mrs. Lawson said. 

“I know; but I never thought of his being 
such a scamp. Well, he has paid me back this 
time for not remembering to give him his frolic. 
True, I almost wish that I could whip you,” he 
said, shaking his finger at the graceful creature. 
The squirrel was poking one of his cute little 
hands through the bars of his wheel, begging 
for a nut. 

In spite of her chagrin over the ruined coat, 
Mrs. Lawson hastened to give the little fellow 
his longed-for liberty. 

“I shall be at home all day, and I will make 
up to him for our neglect by letting him remain 
loose until the evening,” she said. 

Bo True was as happy as a squirrel could 


122 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal . 

well be who was deprived of his inalienable 
right to a life of freedom in the woods. 

The servants were warned to keep the outer 
doors closed, and the squirrel roamed at will 
over the house. He had so often enjoyed this 
freedom that no one apprehended any danger 
for him. Both Mr. Lawson and Judd, when 
they came home to dinner, rejoiced to see him 
having such a happy time. 

“It seems almost cruel to keep him shut up 
in a cage at all,” Judd said, as he saw how the 
nimble creature seemed to enjoy his freedom. 

The loss of the overcoat was quite a serious 
thing, and Mr. Lawson, upon first hearing about 
it, had felt quite angry. 

“ I have half a mind to give the rascal away,” 
he said; but Judd knew he would not carry 
his threat into execution, for he was as fond of 
True as were any of them. 

As he now watched True’s pretty, graceful 
ways, he said : “ I wonder what induced him to 
cut the coat, anyway.” 

“To provide something fresh and soft for his 
bed, perhaps,” Mrs. Lawson replied. 

Just then a servant entered the room, bear- 
ing a tray of dessert. She left the door ajar 
behind her ; a draught of wind suddenly closed 
it with a bang. A wail of distress was heard. 
Judd sprang to his feet and rushed to the door. 


A Sudden Death. 


123 


Poor True had been caught in it as it closed. 
He was dead when Judd picked him up. 

The boy was not ashamed of the tears which 
coursed down his cheeks as the limp body of 
his pet dangled from his hands, Mrs. Lawson 
also shed tears over the sad death of the beau- 
tiful creature ; and the servant, through whose 
carelessness the accident had occurred, was 
quite heart-broken. 

Judd got up quite an elaborate funeral for 
the dead favorite, and invited several of his 
boy friends to the services. The remains were 
placed in a pretty box, and a tiny United States 
flag was draped about it. They marched in 
procession to the grave, and one of the boys 
repeated an appropriate piece of poetry, in a 
funereal tone, over what remained of poor True. 
Then he was consigned to his last resting-place, 
and Judd declared that he never wanted to own 
another pet, for it cost too much to lose him. 

“How about your rabbits?” one of his 
friends asked. 

“ Oh ! I don’t care much for them. I like to 
have them, but I don’t love them as I did poor 
True. They are rather stupid, you know ; but 
the squirrel had almost as much sense as some 
people show;” and he launched into a descrip- 
tion of some of the winsome and intelligent 
tricks of his departed favorite. 


CHAPTEB XXL 


AN UNSUSPECTED ROGUE. 

HE morning following the squirrel’s inter- 



JL ment, Judd mournfully said : “ I am going 
to put True’s cage out of sight. It makes me 
feel dreadfully to see it, and to remember the 
poor fellow is in his grave.” 

Before he carried it away he opened the tiny 
door and peered into the dainty house which 
had been True’s home for more than three 
years. 

“ Better take out the cotton which he had for 
his bed and burn it, before you set the cage 
away,” Mrs. Lawson said, coming up and stand- 
ing beside him. He put in his hand and drew 
out a handful of cotton. 

“ Look. Here are pieces of my coat, all cut 
into little bits,” he said, curiously examining the 
dark shreds which were scattered through the 
white. He drew out another handful of cotton, 
and then another. 

“My! What a soft bed he had. See what 
a pile of stuff. And there’s still more,” he said. 
“ What did you give him such a lot for, mother? 


124 


An Unsuspected Rogue. 125 

It must have filled his house so full he hardly 
had room to turn around.” 

“ I am sure I did not give him all that trash,” 
Mrs. Lawson answered. “ I only placed a good 
handful of cotton in the house. Dinah cleaned 
out his cage the last time, to be sure, and put 
in the fresh cotton, but I gave it to her. And 
I know there was not hal'f as much as you have 
brought out.” 

“Whew! Just look here,” Judd exclaimed, 
holding up a fragment of blue silk. “ If that 
isn’t a piece of my pretty necktie which I lost 
a while back. Yes, and here are some bits of 
white silk. Oh ! and here is one of the initials 
which was on my silk handkerchief. Who 
would have thought that True was such a 
thief? He must have stolen these from my 
room.” 

Mrs. Lawson bent over the pile of debris, as 
Judd finished speaking, and eagerly examined 
it. After picking out some tiny scraps of some- 
thing here and there, she looked into her son’s 
face and said: “You are right in calling him a 
thief. It was he, instead of Jack, who stole 
your money, as well as your tie and gloves and 
handkerchief. Look here.” 

She spread out some small bits of greenish 
paper upon the table. Judd closely examined 


126 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

them. His face flushed scarlet, and he looked 
confusedly into his mother’s eyes. 

“I do not wonder, dear, that it makes you 
blush to remember the hard words you spoke 
to Jack. And it was your suspicions that first 
aroused your father’s. True stole the bills, not 
Jack, and these bits of paper prove it. Here 
is a piece with the figure five clearly seen.” 

“ But what in the world did True want with the 
money?” Judd asked. 

“I suppose his object was to make his bed 
softer. Here are little pieces of the linen 
handkerchief in which the bills were tied.” 1 

So Jack was cleared from the charge of steal- 
ing. Mr. Lawson’s contrition was deep for the 
cruel manner in which the poor boy had been 
accused of a crime for which the naughty squir- 
rel was alone responsible. He could scarcely 
believe the facts in the case until he had care- 
fully examined the pile of trash for himself. 
In this he found positive proof of True’s pro- 
pensity for stealing, and saw without a doubt 
that all the missing articles, including the bills 
of money, had been stolen by the agile crea- 
ture. 

“We must get Jack back, and treat him so 

1 The incident of the squirrel’s thieving propensity, as 
of his death, is an actual occurrence. 


An Unsuspected Rogue. 127 

well that he will forget the past,” he said, with 
a rueful glance into his wife’s face. 

“ I will go and see him this afternoon,” Mrs. 
Lawson replied. It was Saturday. “Judd, 
you can go with me, if you wish, and tell Jack 
how sorry you are for your unkind suspicions.” 

Judd shook his head. 

“I don’t want to. Of course I’m sorry, and 
all that, but I don’t see why he need to come 
back. That new clerk is a lot sharper than he 
was. Jenkins says he sells more than he does. 
He knows how to talk things up.” 

“I prefer Jack, now that I know he is 
honest,” Mr. Lawson responded. “There is 
such a thing as a fellow being too smart. 
Brown is one of that kind.” 

That same day Mrs. Lawson’s carriage 
stopped before the Grayson’s lovely suburban 
home. Jack was just going out, but he returned 
to the house when he met her at the gate. 

“I have good news for you,” she said, with a 
glad smile. “ The real thief has been dis- 
covered, and your name has been cleared from 
all suspicion.” 

Mrs. Gordon and Grace were at home, and 
they, as well as Jack, listened with thankful 
joy to the story she unfolded. 

“Mr. Lawson told me I must be sure and 


128 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

bring you back with me,” she concluded. 
“He wants you in the store again, and will 
advance your wages.” 

Jack looked pleased and glanced toward 
Grace. Before either of them could speak, 
Mrs. Gordon hastened to say: “You are very 
kind. We appreciate Mr. Lawson’s offer, but 
Stoney, or Jack as I see you call him, will re- 
main with us.” 

As Mrs. Lawson opened her lips to remon- 
strate, Mrs. Gordon added: “Dr. Gordon has 
fully decided to place him in college at once, and 
prepare him for his life work. We look upon 
him as our own son, and as such we claim the 
privilege and the right of caring for his future.” 

Jack was so surprised and touched by these 
words that his lip quivered, and he decided it 
was best for him to keep silent. 

When Mrs. Lawson at last arose to go, he 
said: “Please thank Mr. Lawson for his kind 
offer. I would be glad to go back, if — ” he 
hesitated. 

“ If your heart was not set upon becoming a 
physician, and upon beginning to prepare for 
this career as speedily as possible,” Mrs. Gor- 
don smilingly supplemented. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


A TEST. 



NE week later Jack entered the best 


school in Richmond. After a long talk 
with Dr. and Mrs. Gordon he had yielded him- 
self wholly into their hands. 

“ I have an abundance of this world’s goods,” 
the doctor said. “ I know of no better way to 
use a portion than in fitting you for God’s ser- 
vice in your chosen profession. This will place 
you under no obligation to me, for I consider 
myself as merely being God’s steward, and I 
believe it is his wish that I should do this. 
We look upon you as belonging to us now, 
Stoney, and we give you a son’s place in our 
affections.” 

“ I notice that Mrs. Lawson calls you ‘ Jack’,’ ” 
Mrs. Gordon hastened to say to relieve the boy, 
whose emotions threatened to overpower him. 
“I suppose this is by your wish.” 

Jack explained to her how and why he had 
given the Tolleys and Lawsons the name of 
Jackson instead of Thomas, and added: “I 
wanted to be called Jackson, not Jack. But 


129 


9 


130 Stoney Cardington s Ideal. 

everyone gave me the short nickname, so I 
could not help myself.” 

“ Hereafter we will call you Jackson,” Dr. 
Gordon quickly responded. “ I fully appreci- 
ate why you did not care to be known any 
longer as Stoney. That name answered for 
the child. It would be very inappropriate for 
the young man.” 

Thereafter the boy was pleased to hear him- 
self addressed by the entire household under 
his chosen name of “Jackson.” 

Some weeks later there came to him an invi- 
tation to dine with the Lawsons. The dinner 
was to be on a Saturday, so he was free to 
accept it. 

He found Judd almost as cordial as in the 
earlier days of their acquaintance. Since Jack 
was no longer to be a member of the home 
circle, and was not now held up as a model for 
his imitation, Judd felt his old-time fondness 
return for him. 

“Come and look at True’s grave,” he said, 
soon after Jack was in the house. 

The squirrel’s tomb was in a corner of the 
yard. A neat board, on which his name and 
age were printed, marked his resting-place. 

“Who would ever have thought of him as 
being the thief?” Judd remarked as they stood 


A Test. 


131 


beside the tiny mound. “ You can’t guess how 
cheap I felt when I knew that it was he, and 
not you, who had taken my things. I’m no end 
sorry for all the mean things I said to you.” 

His words and manner were frank, and Jack 
hastened to say : “ Don’t think about them 
again. It’s all right now. I was dreadfully 
sorry to hear of True’s sad end. But I’m glad 
he didn’t suffer long.” 

“Not a minute. He was dead when I picked 
him up. The door crushed his head, you 
know,” was Judd’s reply. 

The dinner proved to be one of Mrs. Law- 
son’s best. The dainty wine glasses sparkled 
beside the plates, and Jack saw them with a 
thrill of regret. He knew that he must not 
yield to the pressure which he felt sure Mr. 
Lawson would bring to bear upon him to in- 
duce him to again indulgo in his hostess’ mild 
wine. This apprehension proved correct. 
When he declined to have his glass filled, his 
host said: “Nonsense, Jack. I drank up all 
of Mrs. Lawson’s thin wine on purpose to 
treat you to some of the genuine article. This 
is the best Port in the city.” 

As he spoke he reached for Jack’s glass. 

“But I cannot drink it, Mr. Lawson,” Jack 
answered. “ I appreciate your kindness, but I 
must not taste it.” 


132 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

Mr. Lawson smiled as he said : “ ‘ Must not/ 
Jack ? And wherefore ? ” 

His guest hesitated. Seeing this, Mr. Law- 
son took the glass and filled it with the rich, 
beautiful liquid. 

“If you don't pronounce this the best wine 
you ever tried, then I shall think you do not 
know a good brand when you taste it,” he re- 
marked. 

Jack was silent. His heart was saying : “ He 
can put it before me, but he cannot make me 
drink it. I hate to seem rude, but I believe, 
now, I would rather lose my right hand than 
touch a drop of it.” 

He noticed that Mrs. Lawson permitted 
Judd to have only half a glass. The boy 
grumbled over this in a low tone, but his mother 
was firm. 

“You see, Jack, Judd is built differently 
from you,” Mr. Lawson said, as he noticed his 
guest’s observant eyes resting upon Judd’s par- 
tially-filled glass. “ Our boy seems to have no 
higher ambition than to indulge his appetites. 
This quite worries his mother, and she insists 
upon keeping him on thin rations. No doubt 
she is right. But when a fellow has an idea of 
being somebody, as you have, there is not a bit 
of danger of his going too far. I’d trust you 


A Test. 


133 


with a barrel of wine in yonr bed-room, and 
never be afraid yon would take too much.” 

Jack murmured something intended as thanks 
for this implied compliment to his strength of 
character. He was thinking : “ How little he 
knows me. If any boy was ever weaker than I 
proved to be before I left this house, I pity 
him.” 

Dinner was almost over before Mr. Lawson 
noticed that Jack’s wine remained untouched. 
His face flushed a little as he said: “You’re 
not going to turn your back on my Port after 
all, are you? I got it especially in honor of 
your visit.” 

Jack looked quite distressed as he said: 
“Please don’t think me rude, but indeed I 
must not drink it.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

A GOOD TIME. 

“ T ITELL, tell us why you must not,” Mr. 

V \ Lawson said. 

He was a good-natured man, usually, but he 
had wished to give Jack pleasure as well as 
to show him an especial honor by placing this 
expensive wine before him. It nettled him to 
be thus balked in his kindly designs. 

Mrs. Lawson looked sympathetically into 
their young guest’s flushed face and interposed 
with: “Why not let him do as he prefers, Mr. 
Lawson ? I am sure the wine will not be wasted 
while you are about.” 

“ I want to hear his reason for not tasting it. 
If it is a good one I will not say another word,” 
her husband said, looking expectantly at Jack. 

“ I have given myself to God since I went 
away from here,” the boy said, in a low voice. 
“I should feel that I was doing wrong if I 
drank the wine.” 

“ But I know plenty of church members who 
use wine,” his host persisted. 

“That may be. But I could not do it with a 
clear conscience. It means more to me than 


134 


A Good Time. 


135 


you can guess to do anything that could possi- 
bly grieve my best Friend.” 

Jack’s tone grew firmer as he thus spoke. 
He glanced towards Mrs. Lawson and was sur- 
prised to see that she was regarding him with 
tears in her eyes. 

Mr. Lawson dropped the subject, but Jack 
could see that he was much annoyed. 

Before he went down to his store, he said, 
as he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder : “ I 
owe you an apology, Jack, and something more 
than an apology, for the way I sent you off. I 
am heartily ashamed of myself. I hoped you 
would come back to us and give me a chance to 
show you, by my acts, how sorry I am for my 
base suspicions, and how much I do really 
think of you.” 

It cost him an effort to say this. 

Jack raised beaming eyes to his face and 
answered: “It’s just as though it had never 
happened, Mr. Lawson. Don’t ever waste 
another thought over it.” 

“ I said I owed you something more than 
an apology for the way I treated you in 
sending you away as I did on an unfounded 
suspicion,” the groceryman continued. “Here 
is the money your wages would have amounted 
to from the time I turned you off ’till you de- 


136 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

cided not to come back to ns. And, now, if 
you ever stand in need of a friend, you must 
come to me.” 

He placed an envelope in the boy’s hand ; 
then, as he turned away, he looked back to say : 
“It’s all right to join the church, if. you want 
to, Jack. But don’t you let the preachers 
make a muff out of you. You’re too fine a chap 
to have the mettle taken out of you by follow- 
ing their tiresome rules.” 

The boy smiled as he thought, with a glow at 
his heart : “ It is only the dross they want to 
take out. The mettle will stay, all right, and 
will be worth something, I hope, when the 
worthless trash is gone.” 

Mrs. Lawson evinced much emotion when 
the hour for his departure came and he bade her 
good-bye. 

“ I am so glad you have joined the church,” 
she said. “I wish I had joined, long ago. 
Where do you belong?” 

“To the Grace- Street Presbyterian Church. 
Dr. Bead is pastor. He is a splendid man.” 

“Yes; I have heard him preach. I will try 
and go around often, now that I know you 
are there. Perhaps I will join, if I can get 
Mr. Lawson to join with me,” she responded, 
gazing wistfully into Jack’s face. 


A Good Time. 


137 


It lighted up joyfully at her words, “ Oh, I 
hope you will.” 

He longed to tell her something of what was 
in his heart, but he did not have the courage. 
So he again said : “ I hope you will join real 
soon,” and went away. 

“I wish Judd would join, too,” he thought, 
as he walked homeward. “He needs some- 
thing that will change him. I like Judd. He 
is a jolly fellow in the main, but he does not 
aim high enough. His one idea still is ‘to have 
a good time ’ And his good times mean bad 
times, I’m afraid, in the end.” 

Jack had good reason for the fear. Judd 
had confided to him that he could now play 
cards much better than Hugh Brandon. A set 
of his school-fellows, the Brandons included, 
met every Friday, after school, in an old de- 
serted building not far from the river. 

They had formed themselves into a secret 
society, “bound by an awful oath,” Judd said, 
“ not to reveal anything that was done at these 
meetings.” 

“We have splendid times,” he added. “New 
fellows join us every once in a while. A lot of 
’em want to come in, but we take only a cer- 
tain kind — jolly fellows who won’t blab.” 

“ Does your mother know about the society,” 
Jack had asked him. 


138 Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal . 

Judd gave a derisive laugh, as he said: “I 
should hope not. I told father about it when 
we were first getting it up. Of course he doesn’t 
know what the oath is, nor any of our secrets. 
He knows better than to ask. He belongs to 
ever so many secret societies himself. He 
laughed when I told him about ours, and asked 
if we made our fellows ride a goat. Father 
knows what a boy needs to make him a man, 
but mother would like to keep me a baby al- 
ways.” 

These being Judd’s sentiments, it was not 
very probable that Mrs. Lawson’s love would 
have much restraining influence over her boy. 

Although he was now nearly sixteen years of 
age, Jack was not wise enough in the ways of 
the world to have a clear conception of Judd’s 
danger. But he knew enough to feel that a 
change was desirable, and as he recalled the 
petted boy’s words, he again said : “ I wish 
Judd would join the church.” 


CHAPTER XXI Y. 


"A NOBLE LIFE WILL LIVE FOREVER .” 
EEKS passed into months and months 



V V into years, bringing Jack Cardington to 
his eighteenth birthday. Long ago he had 
made a flying visit to Mrs. Carson, and had 
placed within her hands his entire store of 
moneyed possession. This was the hoarded 
twenty dollars, the discovery of which had 
seemed to Mr. Lawson and Jndd to seal him 
as being a thief. The groceryman’s gift was 
added to this amount. 

Jack had talked with Grace and with Mrs. 
Gordon before he visited his aunt, and they 
had commended his desire of helping her in 
her time of trouble and want. 

Mrs. Gordon had said: “Dr. Gordon now 
wishes to supply all your needs, so that this 
money, the most of which is the result of your 
years of careful saving, is not required for your 
personal wants. Of course, it might purchase 
many things which would give you pleasure, 
but I believe your idea is the right one, and 
that to give it to Mrs. Carson will bring you 


139 


140 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

more joy than to expend it for any personal 
gratification.'’ 

Mrs. Carson was not voluable in her expres- 
sion of thanks over the gift, nor over his visit. 
She merely said, as she put the bills away: 
<l I’m glad to find you’re not so bad as I thought. 
I never expected to lay eyes on you again. Of 
course, you owe me a good deal fur defraudin’ 
me outen your work just when I was a-countin’ 
on havin’ you pay me back fur all I had spent 
on you. That was a shabby thing you done, 
an' I am proper glad you feel it enough to 
come back an’ apologize in this satisfyin’ 
way ” 

Jack smiled. He was rather surprised at 
hei way of looking at things, but he felt gen- 
uine compassion for her, and was pleased to 
note her satisfaction in receiving his peace- 
offering. 

Some months later her husband apparently 
decided that it was his duty to support her, 
even if her tongue did, at times, almost turn 
his brain. At any rate, he once more took 
up his abode in the little home, and had re- 
mained there ever since, working hard and giv- 
ing his family a comfortable support. 

Jack was leading many of his classes in his 
college course. This was not a surprise to Dr. 


ei A Noble Life Will Live Forever i41 


Gordon, nor to any one who knew of his past. 
A boy who had regularly, for three years, at- 
tended night school after working all day in a 
grocery store, was not one who was likely to 
make a low grade of scholarship when he en- 
tered college. 

“Eighteen to-day! How nice it is to feel 
that I am almost a man,” he was saying to 
himself as he came blithely out of the recita- 
tion hall. 

Professor Foster had just given him some 
words of high commendation over his mastery 
of an obscure passage in Greek, and his heart 
was beating high with pleasure. A group of 
students stood beneath the shadow of a clump 
of evergreens as he passed along the campus, 
apparently absorbed in some interesting dis- 
cussion. One of the number opened the ring 
as Jack approached, and beckoned him to join 
them. He did so, expecting that it was some 
fraternity question which engaged them. In- 
stead, the one who had called him said in a 
low tone, and with a light laugh * “ You’ve got 
an eye for beauty, Jackson What do you 
think of this? ” 

He placed a photograph in his hand as he 
spoke. Jack gave a swift glance at the picture. 
His face darkened as he said: “ I would sooner 


142 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

you had struck me in the face, Thompson, than 
have shown me that thing.” 

“Hush! Don’t speak so loud,” one of the 
other students said, warningly. 

Claude Thompson spoke: “Why, it’s all 
right. Only one of those cute things that come 
in our cigarette boxes. I thought you would 
enjoy it.” 

“Whatever suggests evil is beastly,” Jack 
quickly responded. Then he opened his coat 
and drew a tiny volume from his pocket. From 
its leaves he took a printed scrap of paper. 
“Read this, Thompson. Two years ago I cut 
it out of a paper, and I have carried it ever 
since. It has acted as a kind of talisman to 
keep me from just such danger as is entrapping 
you fellows this afternoon.” 

The young man proceeded to glance over the 
bit of paper, and several of his companions 
crowded up to look over it with him. This is 
what they read : 

“After Stowewall Jackson’s death, a New 
York merchant said of him : ‘ I never met Mr. 
Jackson but once, yet an incident in which he 
had part exerted a strong influence over my 
early life. I was a boy in college, eager to be 
considered a man, but often hesitating to main- 
tain the principles taught me by my mother, 


U A Noble Life Will Live Forever .” 143 


lest I should be called weak and womanish. 

“‘I happened to be seated at supper one 
night next to Jackson, who was somewhat 
younger than I. While waiting to be served 
one of the boys drew from his pocket a picture 
suggestive of evil, and it was slyly circulated 
among the students near by, with smiles and 
suppressed laughter. When it came to Jack- 
son, he glanced at it contemptuously and said, 
‘That is silly and beastly.’ 

“ ‘ The boys were silent. One of them threw 
the card on the fire. I felt a sudden stiffening 
of my whole moral nature. It was so easy for 
him to be pure and manly. Why not for me? 

“ ‘ I can truly and candidly say that that mo- 
mentary touch of a strong, bold nature, put 
new health and vigor into my own. 

“ ‘ There is no fact in human experience more 
striking and significant than the impression 
that is often made upon one soul by another in 
momentary contact.’” 

Claude Thompson read the slip down to the 
last word, and then said : “ That is a good re- 
buke. Thank you, Jackson.” 

He then proceeded to tear the card which he 
had been circulating into a dozen fragments. 
These he placed in his pocket, remarking : “ I’ll 
see that these reach the fire. No one shall be 


144 Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal. 

injured by even a glimpse of a part of this 
‘beastly picture 5 as the noble Jackson truth- 
fully named it. I fancy the South owes more 
to that man than she yet knows. His words 
and deeds live after him.” 

With a bright face Jackson Cardington 
passed on. 

“ I thank God for my early ideal,” he thought, 
“ and I thank my father for giving me a name 
which awoke in my heart this love for a noble 
character. With General Jackson as an ideal, 
and with General Jackson’s mighty Captain 
admitted into the soul to mould and transform 
one according to his Godlike plan and nature, 
no boy need live on a low plane.” 

Is it any wonder that this youth was every 
day developing into a character which more 
and more challenged the respect of his fellows, 
and won for him the loving regard of all who 
knew him? 


CHAPTER XXV. 


SAD HOURS . 

“ T" AM glad that you will be ready to take 

JL my practice, Jackson, in another year,” 
Dr. Gordon said to his adopted son when the 
latter had passed his twenty-second birthday. 
“I feel the need of rest. My work has become 
too arduous for a man of my years. I shall 
feel relieved when I can stand aside and place 
it in such faithful hands as I know yours will 
be.” 

Jackson smiled as he answered : “ The trans- 
fer must be very gradual indeed, else your pa- 
tients will surely rebel; and they will have 
cause. I feel my in competency more and more 
as I contrast my crude knowledge with your 
ripe experience. It is a great relief to me to 
know that I shall have your advice to help me, 
and your experimental knowledge to fit into 
the crevices of my theories and pet hobbies.” 

It will be seen, from these words, that Jack’s 
life-work was opening before him in the near 
future. 

“ I was called to see Mrs. Lawson yesterday,” 
Dr. Gordon remarked, as Jack finished speak- 
10 145 


146 Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 

ing. “ She has a low type of fever which trou- 
bles me. Anxiety about her son is the chief 
cause of her sickness, I am sure.” 

“Judd is quite wild,” Jack said, regretfully. 
“ He is a fellow of fine parts, but somehow he 
got started wrong when he was a boy. His 
mother fairly idolizes him. I suppose it is 
almost breaking her heart to see him going so 
rapidly to destruction.” 

“ Have you ever had a talk with him about 
his ways, Jackson, and told him how his course 
is killing his mother?” 

“Yes, indeed, sir, many such talks,” Jack 
replied. “ It has not been more than six weeks 
since I met him with his breath reeking with 
whiskey. He had just been on what he was 
pleased to call ‘a tare,’ which meant that he 
had not been home for three days and nights. 
His mother was wild about him. I had just 
seen her before I ran across him. I talked to 
him as earnestly as I knew how, but he only 
laughed at me. I have less hope of his reforma- 
tion than that of almost any fellow I know.” 

“Why is that?” Dr. Gordon asked. 

“ Because, in some way, there seems nothing 
about him to get hold of — no moral nature, I 
mean. From a boy he has scorned his moth- 
er’s suggestions, and rejected all her ideas of 


Sad Hours. 


147 


right and wrong. He has deceived her ever 
since I first knew him, and his father has 
winked at his ways. I am afraid Mr. Lawson 
is more responsible for Judd’s wrong-doing 
than he knows.” 

Jack sighed as he spoke. It hurt him to 
know how deeply Mrs. Lawson was suffering; 
and yet he felt incapable of helping her. The 
only way help could come to her would be by 
saving Judd. 

“I will run out and see her in a day or two,” 
he thought, as he hurried off to lecture. But 
two days later came the news of her death. Dr. 
Gordon related the circumstances attending it, 
as the family gathered around the late dinner- 
table: “She was in a very critical condition. 
Heart-trouble had developed. I warned Mr. 
Lawson that she must be spared all anxiety, 
and that no shocks must be permitted to reach 
her. Her son came into her room last night 
in a state of beastly intoxication. The grief 
caused by seeing him thus snapped the slender 
thread upon which her life was hanging.” 

“Perhaps the knowledge that he has been 
the occasion of her death will have the effect 
of turning the poor boy from his evil ways,” 
Mrs. Gordon said. 

“I hope so,” Jack responded. He was too 


148 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

deeply troubled by Mrs. Lawson’s sad end to 
have any appetite for dinner. As soon as the 
meal was over he hastened to find Judd. 

“ If he will ever listen to me, now will be the 
time,” he pondered. 

“ Judd has gone, no one knows where,” Mr. 
Lawson said, in reply to Jack’s inquiry for him. 

The groceryman seemed much broken by his 
wife’s sudden death. Anxiety about his son, 
no doubt, added to his sorrow. 

“ He seemed stunned when he realized that 
it was the shock of seeing him intoxicated that 
killed her,” he frankly said. “I am afraid he 
has gone into deeper excesses, in order to try 
and drown his trouble. Poor boy! he has a 
good heart, but wild companions have been his 
ruin.” 

Mr. Lawson buried his face in his hands as 
he thus spoke, and Jack hastened to say: “I 
hope that he has gone clear away, out of the 
reach of temptation. That, to me, seems the 
most reasonable explanation of his absence.” 

This surmise proved to be the correct one. 
Judd remained out of the city, with some rela- 
tives who lived near Petersburg, for several 
months. He wrote hopeful letters to his father, 
telling him that he was trying to live right, and 
was determined to break entirely away from his 


Sad Hours. 


149 


evil habits. He also spoke of wanting to enter 
the store and go to work when he returned 

Mr. Lawson seemed greatly encouraged by 
these letters, and Jack shared in his hopes. 
Judd was so young, being only a little past 
twenty-two years, that there seemed a reason- 
able possibility that the shock of his mother’s 
death would lead to his reformation. 

Jack was glad to see that the groceryman no 
longer seemed to indulge in his wines and ale. 
Perhaps his conscience had at last aroused, and 
shown him that his use of these insidious in- 
toxicants had been a bad example to set before 
his boy. He did not explain the reason of 
their banishment, but it sufficed Jack to know 
that he had ceased to use them. 

“Perhaps dear Mrs. Lawson’s death may 
bring about what her life failed to accomplish,” 
he thought. “I do hope that she knows how 
Judd is now trying to be a man ; and also that 
Mr. Lawson is changed.” 


CHAPTER XXYI. 


THE BROAD WA Y. 


UDD returned after an absence of five 



months. He entered with so much en- 


thusiasm into the work of his father’s large and 
flourishing store, that all who were interested 
in him entertained strong hopes that his refor- 
mation was complete. 

Jack found time, quite frequently, at first, to 
call around and chat with him. He tried to 
induce him to attend church with him, but this 
Judd persistently declined to do. 

“Father’s life is good enough for me,” he 
said. “ He has managed to get along all right 
without the church, and I can do the same. 
Sermons bore me. I like to go where I can 
have a good time and enjoy myself. I’ll be 
glad to go to the theatre or to the circus with 


you. 


It was now Jack’s turn to decline, which he 
did with a pleasant but firm : “ I have no time 
for plays, and the circus serves me the same 
way you say sermons do you. There is to be a 
grand concert next week. I will enjoy going to 
that with you, if you say so.” 


150 


The Broad Way. 


151 


“ All right. I’d prefer to go to the minstrels, 
but I reckon a fellow ought, once in a while, to 
hear the famous singers who go about,” was 
Judd’s reply. 

They spent a pleasant evening together, 
although Judd grumbled over the music, and 
declared that “it hurt his head to hear people 
screech, and then call it singing.” 

His companion was forced to laugh, not so 
much at his words as over the comical expres- 
sion of countenance which accompanied them. 
The evening had been an unalloyed delight to 
Jack, and he could hardly conceive it possible 
how any one could feel about it as did Judd. 
He tried hard, as the weeks passed, to interest 
him in something higher than his mind had 
hitherto been wont to grasp. But Judd’s tastes 
all seemed to lie in a certain direction, and 
Jack’s efforts to turn them ended in failure. 
Finding this to be the result, and feeling the 
burden of his last months of study pressing 
upon him, his visits to Judd gradually became 
less frequent. As the time for his graduating 
exercises drew near they ceased altogether. The 
anxiety he had felt lest Judd should again fall 
into his old evil ways was lost amid the many 
duties that now crowded upon him. He was, 
therefore, much startled and dismayed when a 


152 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

friend casually remarked to liim : “ Judd Law- 
son has lapsed into his old ways. It does seem 
too bad, for he is a good-hearted fellow.” 

“ What makes you think he has gone back to 
his bad habits?” Jack quickly asked. 

“I met him with that Brandon fellow yester- 
day. Both were drunk. One of the fellows 
told me that Brandon said, when he heard that 
Judd had reformed and was helping his father, 
that he would get him out of the store before 
three months had passed. Charley Brandon is 
about the hardest customer I know.” 

Jack sighed, and fell into a reverie. He was 
too busy for the reverie to be long continued, 
but in the brief time it lasted he recalled many 
things. 

Hugh and Charley Brandon had been, from 
boyhood, Judd’s chosen companions. Charley, 
being the eldest, had wielded a powerful influ- 
ence over him. And this influence had always 
been toward evil. He it was who had gone 
from his mother’s parlor, and from the card 
parties there given, to the gaming table, and he 
had carried Judd with him. 

Not until her boy had been gambling, in a 
quiet way, for a long time, had Mrs. Lawson 
suspected that Judd understood how to play 
even the simplest game of cards. 


The Broad Way. 153 

Jack came out of his fit of musing with an 
audible groan. 

“If a fellow only knew what risks he takes 
when he purposely deceives his mother, he 
would surely think twice before he did it. 
Judd Lawson’s downfall began right there,” he 
said. 

“That’s about where every chap begins to 
go wrong, isn’t it?” suggested his companion. 

“Probably. If Judd had ever had a noble 
ideal there might have been less chance of his 
going to ruin. But his highest aim has always 
been c to have a good time.’ Poor Judd! If 
Charley Brandon has got hold of him again, I 
am afraid there is not much hope for him.” 

“ Hugh Brandon seems to be a nice fellow. 
How is it that he is so different from his 
brother?” his companion asked. 

“ Oh ! when his father died he was sent away 
to be with an uncle. All his surroundings were 
changed. I have heard that his uncle is a 
noble Christian man. When Hugh came back, 
two years ago, he joined the church, and he 
has lived all right ever since.” 

Jack determined, at his earliest leisure, to go 
and visit Mr. Lawson, and see if there was any 
possibility of helping extricate Judd from his 
evil environment. When he was at last able to 


154 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal . 

call upon his old employer, he found him so 
unlike the jovial, care-free man of other days, 
that his heart sank within him. He felt that 
what he had heard about Judd must all be true. 

The groceryman’s words confirmed his fears. 

“ He is wilder than ever,” he confessed, in 
reply to Jack’s affectionate inquiry. “ I seem 
to have lost all hope for him since he has got 
to running with Charley Brandon again.” 

“It won’t do to feel discouraged,” Jack 
cheerily responded. “God is still alive, and 
our hope of saving Judd must be anchored in 
him.” 

Mr. Lawson smiled rather grimly as he said : 
“ That thought may comfort you, but it does 
not hold much for me. God is too busy, I 
take it, managing the big things of the universe, 
to care what becomes of poor, weak chaps like 
Judd and Charley.” 

“ And yet Christ tells us that the ‘ very hairs 
of our head are all numbered, ’ ” Jack responded. 
A quick thought brought the color to his cheek 
and an eager light to his eyes. He said, in a tone 
of confidence : “ I am going, from this moment, 
to ask God to save Judd, in some way, from 
Charley Brandon’s influence. And I believe 
he will do it.” 

“Well, if I felt as you do, and believed that 


The Broad Way. 


155 


God would listen to my prayers, I might hope 
to see Judd reformed,” Mr. Lawson slowly re- 
plied. 

“God tells us there is only one man whose 
prayers he will not hear,” Jack said, impres- 
sively. 

“And what man is that?” 

“The one who hides iniquity in his heart.” 

Leaving that thought to find its way into the 
grocery man’s inner consciousness, Jack went 
home. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


ANSWERED PRATER. 

J ACK’S success as a physician was soon 
assured. In a year from the time he en- 
tered upon the active work of his profession, 
all of Dr. Gordon’s practice had passed into 
his hands. Added to this was an ever-increas- 
ing circle of patients, who felt that the brilliant 
young physician was fully fitted to cope with 
their various troubles and ailments. Much of 
his first success was, no doubt, owing to Dr. 
Gordon’s influence, as well as to that of other 
interested and influential friends of the Gordon 
family. But Jack’s cheery ways and sympa- 
thetic heart won him hosts of friends, and his 
skill in conquering disease was soon manifest 
to all. 

“A true physician, like a teacher, is born, 
not made,” Dr. Gordon remarked to Grace, 
when he saw how his protege was winning 
deserved success. “ Jackson’s abilities surprise 
me. I knew he was able, even brilliant, as his 
college record proved. But he seems to have 
an instinctive knowledge of the best way of 
treating troublesome cases, which is most re- 
156 


157 


Answered Prayer. 

markable. Some of his methods are unique. 
I believe he will become one of the ablest phy- 
sicians of his day.” 

“ When a man is as devoted to his profession 
as is Jackson, I suppose success must always 
wait upon him,” Grace rejoined. 

“In a certain sense, yes. But this will not 
explain Jackson’s phenomenal leap into public 
favor. Extraordinary gifts and powers must 
lie behind his winning manners and his love 
for his profession,” Dr. Gordon responded. 

One day as the busy young physician was 
passing down one of the streets in the poorer 
portion of the city, he was stopped and asked to 
visit a man who had just been shot. He hastily 
followed his guide into a house near by, where 
the wounded man lay. One glance into the 
pale, drawn face revealed the sufferer as none 
other than Judd Lawson. His wounds and in- 
juries were very serious. They might prove 
fatal. Jack did what he could for him, and 
then ordered Mr. Lawson sent for. Judd 
was too weak from loss of blood to be able to 
talk. 

“Whiskey has done its usual work,” Jack 
reflected, as he went on his way, saddened by 
this unexpected encounter with his old com- 
rade and room-mate. “ If he lives he will 


158 Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 

probably never be able to walk. The spine is 
injured.” 

His diagnosis proved correct. Judd’s life 
was spared, but he could never again stand 
upon his feet. A drunken brawl had ended in 
making him a cripple for life. 

‘‘This is pretty trying, Judd,” the young phy- 
sician said, after the wounded man had re- 
covered all the health that would ever come to 
him, and was able to be wheeled about the 
house in an invalid’s chair. “For an active 
fellow like you to be tied to this chair does 
seem hard.” 

Judd’s face looked brighter than Jack had 
seen it for many a long day as he replied: 
“Perhaps you’ll hardly believe me, Jack, but I 
have been thinking all the morning how glad I 
am that I will never be able to run around 
again.” 

“Why?” was Jack’s response, although his 
heart divined the answer. 

“Well, I was such a poor, weak fool that I 
never could have kept from drink if I had got 
strong and active again. I tried my best after 
mother’s death, but it was no good. The smell 
of whiskey and Charley Brandon’s influence 
were too much for me. I got so I couldn’t 
pass a saloon to save my life without turning 


Answered Prayer. 


159 


in. Now I am safe, and I hope I can li\e a 
decent life, even if I am tied to this chair the 
rest of my days.” 

Tears sprang to Jack’s eyes. He took one 
of Judd’s hands in his, and looking across the 
room where Mr. Lawson sat with his head 
bowed as though in deep thought, he said: 
“Almost two years ago, Judd, I began to ask 
God to save you from Charley Brandon and 
from whiskey. I believed he would do it. 
Sometimes I got disheartened, when I saw how 
far gone you were, but at such seasons I would 
plant myself afresh on one of God’s promises, 
assured that in his own good time my prayer 
would be answered. When I first looked into 
your face that day you were shot, my heart 
sank. I thought you w r ould die. But you see 
now that God has heard me. You are saved 
from Charley Brandon, and you are also saved 
from whiskey.” 

Mr. Lawson arose and came and stood by 
Judd’s chair. 

“He is certainly saved from Charley Bran- 
don,” he said, with strong feeling. “If ever 
again he dares to come where Judd is, I will 
shoot him as I would a dog. It is to him that 
Judd owes his ruin as well as his injured back.” 

“Not altogther, father,” Judd answered. 


160 


Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

“Charley is bad, and he never rested until he 
got me to be as wild as himself. But if I had 
never seen yon touch wine or beer or ale, I 
would not have been so easily led off. I thought 
what you did was just right ; and I felt I was 
man enough to drink just as I saw my father 
drink, without any danger of going too far. 
How well I remember with what pride I used 
to see you toss off two and three and even four 
glasses of wine, without ever seeming to feel 
them. Other fellows’ fathers would be drunk 
over half what you would take. It became the 
height of my ambition to be just like you. But 
I had a weak head as well as a weak will, so I 
went to the dogs.” 

.If Judd had struck his father in the face, Mr. 
Lawson could not have appeared more startled 
than he did when he heard these words. He 
stood for a full moment looking silently into 
his son’s face. Then he turned away, saying 
in a husky voice: “May God, forgive me! I 
thought I loved you well enough to have died 
for you. Yet I, it seems, and not Charley 
Brandon, am responsible for your ruined life.” 

“Not wholly ruined, perhaps, father,” Judd 
said. “Now that I am safe from the saloon 
and from whiskey, I may be able to do some- 
thing with my life after all. I have been think- 


Answered Prayer. 


161 


ing it all over this morning. You know I 
always had a clever head for figures. The 
study of mathematics was about the only thing 
I cared for at school. I could learn book-keep- 
ing and become your book-keeper. I suffer no 
pain now, and this would give me something 
to do ; and it would also keep me from being a 
useless weight upon your hands.” 

Jack saw that Mr. Lawson’s lip quivered with 
emotion as he listened to Judd’s words. 

“It will be better to leave them alone to- 
gether,” he thought. So with a hurried good- 
bye he went out. 


11 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


BROKEN PLANS. 

FEW weeks later, Dr. Jackson Carding- 



XA. ton walked into the artistically decorated 
room which Grace called her ‘‘sanctum,” with 
the air of a man who is the bearer of glad tid- 
ings. He was always welcomed into this cosy 
retreat by Grace, and many were the confi- 
dences he had poured into her sisterly ears 
during the years of his residence under the 
Grayson roof. 

To-day he looked into her beaming face with 
unusual affection as he said : “I have a precious 
secret to tell you. Edith Denham has promised 
to become my wife before the leaves of next 
October begin to fade.” 

“Oh, I am so glad,” Grace exclaimed, with 
deep pleasure. “Edith is the rarest girl I 
know. You are fortunate to have won her. 
She has already refused several fine offers of 
marriage, although she is only twenty- one in 
May.” 

“ The fact that she loves me seems too mar- 
vellous to be true,” Jack replied. “I can 
scarcely yet believe it. Surely God is good to 


162 


Broken Plans. 


163 


me to have given me the heart of this peerless 
girl. I have been wondering, as I came home, 
how I can prove to him my deep gratitude for 
his priceless gift.” 

“A life of simple and unquestioning obedi- 
ence to his will is the only way, it seems to me, 
that we can ever show our love and gratitude 
for any of his goodness,” Grace rejoined. 
“ Sometimes the path of implicit obedience be- 
comes difficult. Happy the soul who does not 
falter when such tests come. Edith Denham 
will make a true helpmeet for an earnest- 
hearted man, for she is a lovely and devoted 
Christian.” 

Jack continued to pour out his happiness 
and his plans for the future into the sympa- 
thizing ears of his listener, until a peremptory 
wail from the nursery brought Grace to her 
feet. 

She had been the proud mother of a sturdy 
boy for almost a year, now, and when the child’s 
cry was heard, nothing could long detain her 
from his cradle. 

With a merry laugh she ran out, after Jack 
had promised, very soon, to finish unburden- 
ing himself of his budget of rosy-hued plans. 

A few evenings later the young physician, 
with his lovely fiancee by his side, was listen- 


164 


Stoney Cardingtoris Ideal . 

ing to an eloquent appeal from a returned mis- 
sionary for men and means with which to carry 
the gospel work into foreign lands. 

It was not often, these days, that the busy 
physician could command an uninterrupted 
evening, but this proved to be one of those rare 
occasions. 

The fluent speaker told, in burning words, of 
the sore need that existed for men of talent and 
consecration in the foreign field. Toward the 
close of his appeal, he said : “ God is urgently 
calling for men of cultured intellect to penetrate, 
with gospel torch in hand, into the vast fields 
of heathen darkness, which still cover so large 
an area of the globe. He is asking for your 
best. Not for those men for whom no room is 
found at home, but rather for those whose go- 
ing will leave a vacancy hard to fill. India, 
China, J apan, all call for workers with intellec- 
tual powers of the highest. Intellects so clear 
and so thoroughly trained that the Holy Spirit 
may possess them, as he possessed Paul, in such 
fulness as to make of them an irresistible power 
to be hurled against Satan and his kingdom. 

“ Only such can be effectively used of God to- 
ward the pulling down of Brahmanism, Hindoo- 
ism, Confucianism, and all the effete systems of 
those peoples whose leaders are men of such 


Broken Plans. 


165 


learning as causes them to laugh to scorn the 
missionary who goes to them with meagre intel- 
lect, or with untrained and unpolished mental 
faculties, expecting to reap a harvest of souls.” 

As Jack listened, his face wore a strangely- 
startled expression. His earnest eyes never 
left tbe speaker until the last word was uttered. 
Then he turned to the maiden by his side with 
cheeks so pale that, had she been less impressed 
herself by the address, must have aroused her 
wonder and anxiety. 

They threaded their way in silence out of the 
thronged building, and it was with forced com- 
posure that Jack spoke of the evening’s service 
as being one of the most solemn he had ever 
attended. 

Miss Denham, like himself, seemed absorbed 
in her own thoughts, and made but brief reply 
to his remarks. 

Once in his room, Jack Cardington sank upon 
his knees by the table, with his open Bible be- 
fore him. 

For hours he alternately read and prayed, 
only rising from his knees, now and then, 
to take a few hurried strides across his room. 
A terrible conflict was raging within his heart. 
His soul seemed to hear the words of Christ as 
addressed to himself: “ Go thou into all the 


166 Stoney Cardin gton s Ideal. 

world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture.” 

In vain he urged that his life-work was al- 
ready mapped out — entered upon. 

“ Go! ” was the answer that sounded like the 
knell of doom through his shrinking soul. 

At last, broken and spent, he squarely faced 
the sacrifice which it seemed to him it must 
cost him to heed the call. His thoughts ran 
thus : “ Earthly prospects all shattered. A no- 
ble ambition trampled upon. Dr. Gordon’s 
expectations and hopes that his protege would 
win a name which might reflect honor upon the 
one who had enabled him to reach that posi- 
tion thrust aside. And last, and bitterest of 
all, Edith must be given up.” 

Not for a moment did he contemplate the 
possibility of Miss Denham accompanying him 
to the foreign field. She was an only child, and 
he could not suppose that her parents would 
be willing to give her up, even if she herself 
could face separation from home and loved 
ones. 

Who can paint a soul while it is passing 
through such an ordeal as was now being thrust 
upon this earnest-hearted young physician ? 

But God won. Slowly and calmly, at last, Jack 
read aloud these words from Holy Writ : “I be- 


Broken Plans . 


167 


seech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies 
of God, that ye present your bodies a living 
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which 
is your reasonable service.” 

Then he said : “ Forever and forever, O God, 
I give myself, spirit, soul, and body, wholly, 
irrevocably to thee ! Do with me as thou wilt. 
I now have no hope, no wish, no desire, but to 
do thy will.” 

All his anguish of soul rolled away. A great 
peace filled him. He smiled as he whispered: 
“I wonder if ihis is what Richard Baxter meant 
by his wonderful ‘rest’? How often I have 
longed to know the exact meaning of his words 
when I have listened to Mrs. Gordon reading 
them.” 

It seemed to him that a divine ecstasy pos- 
sessed him. Again he murmured : “ The other 
Sabbath Dr. Read told us of the sainted Pay- 
son. I remember his very words as he lay dy- 
ing: ‘My soul seems swimming in a sea of 
glory.’ Am I dying, I wonder? The glory 
seems to be all about me, the glory of the 
blessed Christ himself.” 

Never before had he felt so full of strong, 
vigorous life. At last he retired to his bed, 
but his joy was so sweet and thrilling that he 
could not, for a long time, close his eyes in 
sleep. 


CHAPTEE XXIX. 

SEVERED TIES. 

OME one has aptly said : “ God is always 



better to us than our fears.” Jackson 


Cardington experienced the truth of this saying 
when he found that, instead of being called 
upon to renounce Edith Denham, she joyfully 
said, after learning of his battle and his deci- 
sion : “I would rather be the wife of a foreign 
missionary than share a throne with you. It has 
been my dream, from a child, to go to the for- 
eign field to tell of Christ and his love.” 

“But can your father and mother give you 
up ? ” he asked. “ Will it not break their hearts 
to be separated from you ? ” 

“ It will be hard,” she replied. “ But papa, 
at one time, wanted and intended to go out as 
a lay missionary. Only his feeble health pre- 
vented. He will consider it a privilege to give 
me to this work. See if I am not right.” 

So it proved. One by one all the seeming 
barriers melted away, until it almost appeared 
as though Jack’s hard-fought battle had been 
waged against obstacles of straw which he him- 
self had erected. 


168 


Severed Ties. 


169 


Dr. and Mrs. Gordon were moved to happy 
i,ears when they heard of his changed plans. 
Instead of feeling aggrieved, as he had feared, 
they welcomed his going. 

“Medical missionaries are so needed that I 
feel God has honored me far above my deserts 
in permitting me to aid in preparing you for 
this high post of service in his vineyard,” the 
former said. 

Words of pleasure and of encouragement 
also met him when his pastor learned of his 
purpose. 

Not only was this true, but some weeks later 
Dr. Read’s church asked the privilege of 
assuming the expense of Dr. Cardington’s sup- 
port while he was in the foreign field. 

Jack’s cup of thankful joy was now brim- 
ming, and if a happier man than he ever pre- 
pared to go forth to carry the light of the gos- 
pel into the “regions beyond,” certainly his 
Richmond friends had never met him. 

The call for a medical missionary for one of 
their stations in India was before the board of 
his church, and Jack was appointed to this 
field. 

Six months from the night of his terrible 
conflict with self and with ambition, his marri- 
age with Edith Denham was solemnized. The 


170 Stoney Cardington's Ideal. 

next day the consecrated and Spirit-filled 
couple left for their future field of labor. Tears 
and smiles were mingled upon the faces of the 
dear friends who watched their departure. 
Tears, because the human heart is weak and 
ever prone to cling to the object of its affection. 
Smiles, because the Master had so honored 
these youthful servants as to call them to a post 
of peril, there to hold aloft his banner of love 
before a people who were perishing by the 
millions without ever having heard of Christ or 
of his wonderful salvation. 

A few days before his departure Jack went 
to make a final call on Judd Lawson. He 
asked Edith to accompany him, and she gladly 
assented. She had learned from him the his- 
tory of the Lawson family, and her heart had 
gone out in tender sympathy toward Judd, and 
she earnestly desired to meet him. Their visit 
was made in the evening, and father and son 
were both at home, as Jack had hoped would 
be the case. 

Judd looked bright and contented, and he 
said to Jack, with the cheery voice of his boy- 
hood days: “It’s a good time I am having 
keeping the books. Father says I am the most 
careful book-keeper he ever had. That is say- 
ing a good deal, for Hammond was as careful 
as a man could be, it always seemed to me.” 


Severed Ties. 


171 


“ How do you manage about a desk ? ” Jack 
inquired. 

“Oh, father has had a chair with a desk at- 
tached made on purpose for me. It is very 
nice, indeed. I am the most important man 
about the store, now,” and Judd laughed in 
quite his old, jolly way. 

He and Mr. Lawson were both loud in their 
expressions of regret over Jack’s going away. 
The latter looked earnestly at Miss Denham 
and said : “ Could you not persuade him to 
stay ? India has such a dreadful climate that 
I should think you would be afraid to go 
there.” 

“That is one reason why we are glad to be 
appointed to that field,” Edith answered. “ Dr. 
Cardington’s skill will find ample scope for ex- 
ercise among the poor people out there.” 

“ But you — don’t you feel afraid to live 
there?” Mr. Lawson persisted. “I don’t see 
how you can be willing to leave your friends 
and go so far away to be buried from every- 
body you have ever known.” He scanned 
her countenance intently as he awaited her 
reply. 

Jack and Judd were also listening for her 
answer. It came in a moment, with such a 
happy light breaking over her face that Jack 


172 Stoney Cardington' s Ideal. 

alone could understand the secret of her 

j°y- 

“ If this life were all, I might shrink back. 
Or if Christ were less mighty, less tender to- 
ward those who love and trust him, I might 
feel afraid. As it is, I am glad to go where he 
asks me, for I know he will go with me, and I 
can never feel alone or lonely where he is.” 

Mr. Lawson looked so softened as well as 
surprised as he heard these words that, after 
a moment’s silence, Edith ventured to add: 
“How I wish you knew what a wonderful 
Friend he is to those who will accept of his 
love. Everything is so changed when once we 
know him.” 

Whether these words would ever bear fruit, 
she could not tell. Something in his face en- 
couraged her to hope that he might now be 
feeling his need of having this mighty Friend, 
for whom she had witnessed, as his Friend and 
Helper. 

Before they left, Jack laid a beautifully bound 
pocket Bible in Judd’s hand, saying: “Will 
you take this as my parting token of love for 
you? And will you promise me to read in it 
every day ? ” 

Judd gave the promise with great heartiness, 
and his face glowed with pleasure as he ex- 


Severed Ties. 


173 


amined the soft and costly binding of the sacred 
volume. 

“Many a soul has found Christ in reading 
from his word. May Judd be one of the num- 
ber,” was the donor’s thought as he bade these 
friends of his boyhood good-bye, and turned 
his face toward the untried future. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


“IN HEAVENLY PLAGES IN CHRIST JESUS.” 
IVE busy years have rolled on to join the 



1 1 long procession which make up the solemn 
past. What record they have borne to God 
of Dr. Cardington’s life in India may be 
gathered from one or two brief hours, during 
which we will silently stand by his side, and 
try to learn, from his words and acts, what we 
desire to know. 

Has the noble ideal which he early enshrined 
in his heart been realized in his life ? Has the 
sweet mystery of “ Christ in us,” which Paul 
tells us “was so long hidden from the ages,” 
been so fully manifested to and in him as to 
render him, through it, “more than conqueror” 
in all his daily and hourly conflicts with the 
adversary of souls? 

A large hospital has grown up under the 
young physician’s fostering care. It is in this 
that we find him. Many suffering ones have 
already, to-day, felt the touch of his skillful 
hand ; but it is beside one special cot that he 
now lingers. Upon it is stretched the form of 
a youth of some eighteen years. His face is a 


174 


“In Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus.” 175 

noble one, and his eyes, as they seek Dr. Card- 
ington’s, hold a grateful expression which tells 
of pain eased and disease conquered through 
the medium of this earnest-hearted physician. 

“The remedies that I gave you could have 
bi ought you no relief, except as my God blessed 
them,” Dr. Cardington gently said. “ Even the 
surgical operation which I performed might 
have increased, instead of having eased, your 
troubles, had he not placed his seal upon it. 
It is God alone who ‘ forgiveth all our iniqui- 
ties, and healeth all our diseases.’ ” 

For a moment the youth gazed searchingly 
into the young physician’s face. Then he 
turned his head impatiently away and said : “I 
believe in you, Dr. Cardington, but not in your 
God. Why are you always telling me about 
him?” 

“ Because my God is a God of love, and he 
longs to pour his love into your poor, restless 
heart, Chandra. When once you have learned 
and tasted of this wonderful love, your whole 
life will be changed.” 

As he finished speaking, Dr. Cardington drew 
from his pocket a Testament, and laid it upon 
the young man’s pillow, adding, before he 
turned away: “I want you to read this book. 
It tells of God’s great love to you, and it will 


176 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

show you why he has sent you to the hospital. 
It was that you might find him, and that he 
might fill your heart with such joy as you have 
never dreamed possible.” 

“The missionaries have robbed me of my 
mother, and now you want me to worship your 
God, and make me lose my father, too,” the 
youth replied, with tremulous lips. 

Dr. Cardington only smiled, for he saw that, 
in spite of his impatient tone and manner, 
Chandra’s hand had already grasped the sacred 
volume. 

“ Curiosity to learn about the God who has 
stolen his mother’s heart from Buddha will 
prompt him to read it,” he thought, as he 
passed on to carry help and relief to other 
suffering ones. 

Wherever a patient was able to listen, the 
young doctor spoke a few tender words about 
the loving Father who had sent him with heal- 
ing remedies to ease their pain, that he might 
also pour healing into their souls. Some list- 
ened carelessly, others earnestly, and a few scoff- 
ingly ; but all had faith in the skillful physician, 
although the majority rejected his God. 

There was a peculiar magnetism about this 
young doctor, which seemed to draw all hearts 
toward him. This enabled him to speak words 


“In Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus” 177 

for Christ without giving offence, from which 
others were debarred. 

Once again we will glance upon Dr. Carding- 
ton ere we bid him a final adieu. 

Two full months have passed. He is now at 
home. A chubby boy is in his arms, and his 
wife is by his side. Her face, although thinner 
than when we last saw her, wears such a light 
of deep happiness that one knows without the 
telling that no regrets for her life in India have 
ever visited her. 

“ Chandra’s mother was here yesterday,” 
Edith says, smilingly. “She is very hopeful, 
although she has no positive proof that he is 
changed.” 

As she speaks, two figures approach the door. 
One is that of a woman, the other is the young 
man whom we saw in the hospital. 

Dr. Cardington advances toward him with 
outstretched hands. He feels within his soul 
what this visit means, and his heart whispers : 
“My Father, I thank thee.” 

Without waiting for any formal welcome, the 
youth says: “Dr. Cardington, your God has 
found me. It was while I was reading his 
book. Oh! I cannot tell you how it was. I 
only know that he found, and that he showed 
12 


178 Stoney C ar ding ton' s Ideal . 

me my heart ; and then, afterwards, he showed 
me his love; and now I want to be called a 
Christian, and I want to be baptized.” 

The woman who had accompanied him is 
softly weeping, but her happy face tells that 
her tears are those of joy. Edith’s eyes are 
also moist, and she stoops over her little boy, 
whom the doctor has placed upon the floor, to 
hide her emotion. 

“Do you know, Chandra, what it means to 
avow yourself a Christian?” Dr. Cardington 
inquires, gazing searchingly into the young 
man’s face. 

“I do. It means losing my home, my father, 
my friends, my position; giving up all that I 
ever counted dear or worth living for,” is the 
prompt reply. 

“And you are willing to make this sacrifice, 
are you?” 

“ I am. Two days ago I would rather have 
died than do it ; but since I saw him — the Son 
of your God, who was fastened to the cross — I 
do not seem to care for anything but to have 
him always near me ; and I know that I must 
be a Christian, and be willing to be hated by 
my people, if I am to have him walk with me 
all the time.” 

As he thus speaks Chandra’s face holds a 


“In Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus.” 179 

glow that expresses more to his three compan- 
ions than do his words. 

“Another soul is won for Christ,” Dr. Card- 
ingtoh’s heart is saying, and he is filled with 
deep and exultant thanksgiving. Yery solemnly, 
and yet joyously, he says: “Our Lord said to 
his disciples, ‘Verily, I say unto you, There is 
no man that hath left houses, or brethren, or 
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, 
or lands, for my sake and the gospel’s, but he 
shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, 
with persecutions; and in the world to come, 
eternal life.’ ” 

Then he adds: “Shall we kneel and thank 
him for the great love which has caused him 
to seek and to reveal himself in saving power 
to you, Chandra ? ” 

Instantly the youth drops upon his knees, 
and soon the voice of prayer and praise arises 
from the young physician’s lips. 

As we gaze into the devout and upturned 
faces of the kneeling figures, it seems that the 
light which made Stephen’s face “to shine as 
it had been the face of an angel” is also trans- 
figuring these countenances. 

One can imagine that the battlements of 
heaven are crowded with angelic beings who 
are eagerly gazing, with untold joy, upon “one 
more sinner who has repented.” 


180 Stoney Cardingtori s Ideal. 

As Dr. Cardington prays, one feels that his 
spirit stands in the very presence of his God ; 
and one is not surprised that souls are con- 
stantly being given him for his Master. 

Surely he is learning much of the wonderful 
life which these words express, and which he 
now repeats: “Now unto him who is able to- 
do exceeding abundantly, above all that we 
ask or think, according to the power that work- 
eth in us ; unto him be glory in the church by 
Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world with- 
out end. Amen.” 


t 



























